Commerce lowers duties on supercalendared paper from Canada

Producers Port Hawkesbury Paper, Resolute FP, and Irving Paper will see their countervailing duty rates fall following a preliminary administrative review on supercalendered paper from Canada, the U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement.

   Countervailing (CV) duties on imports of supercalendered paper from Canada by producers Port Hawkesbury Paper, Resolute FP, and Irving Paper are set to fall after the U.S. Commerce Department preliminarily calculated new CV duty rates in connection with an administrative review on that product-country combination, the department said in a statement.
   Port Hawkesbury Paper will see a CV duty rate of 15.65 percent, Irving Paper Limited a CV rate of 5.13 percent, and Resolute FP Canada and Resolute FP US Inc. a CV rate of 1.79 percent, according to the preliminary results of the administrative review.
   The administrative review stems from a December 2015 CV order on supercalendered paper from Canada issued by Commerce.
   Commerce is also rescinding part of the administrative review with respect to supercalendered paper both produced and exported by Catalyst Paper Corporation, after the department on April 24 issued the final results of an expedited review for Catalyst’s CV duty order.
   That expedited review determined a subsidy rate for Catalyst that was de minimis. Catalyst remains liable for duties for supercalendered paper that it exports but doesn’t produce, and for such paper that it produces but doesn’t export.
   Commerce will disclose to parties to the proceeding its calculations performed in connection with these preliminary results within five days of Federal Register publication, to occur Jan. 3.
   Absent a Commerce announcement to change deadlines, interested parties may submit case briefs within seven days after the date on which the last verification report is issued in the proceeding, and rebuttal briefs no later than five days after the deadline for case briefs, Commerce said.
   Interested parties wishing to request a hearing must do so within 30 days of publication of the preliminary results by submitting a written request to Commerce’s assistant secretary for enforcement and compliance, using the department’s Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS). Such a hearing would take place at Commerce Department headquarters in Washington.
   Commerce intends to issue final results of this administrative review by the end of May 3 and issue to CBP CV duty assessment instructions, pursuant to this administrative review, 15 days after publication of the review’s final results, the department said.
   Commerce will also instruct CBP to collect cash deposits of estimated CV duties “in the amounts indicated above for each company listed,” on or after the date of publication of the final results.
   The deposit requirements will remain in effect “until further notice,” Commerce said.