[00:00:00] Speaker 03:
Great Action Coalition versus United States.

[00:01:14] Speaker 03:
I think we're ready, Mr. Shane, whenever you are.

[00:01:20] Speaker 02:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:01:21] Speaker 02:
Please, the Court.

[00:01:21] Speaker 02:
I'm Jack Shane of Wiley-Ryne, here today on behalf of the plaintiff of the Rebar Trade Action Coalition.

[00:01:28] Speaker 02:
This appeal concerns the first administrative review of the 2014 countervailing duty order on Turkish rebar, where commerce found that the mandatory respondent IKDAS did not receive countervailable benefits.

[00:01:42] Speaker 02:
by selling electricity to the Turkish government at more than adequate remuneration or MTAR.

[00:01:50] Speaker 02:
ICTAS sold electricity in two ways to the Turkish government, either in the form of direct bilateral contract sales or through sales to the grid.

[00:02:02] Speaker 02:
With regard to the direct contract sales, the agency found that the contract prices to the Turkish government were not at MTAR.

[00:02:12] Speaker 02:
because they represented discounts from the prices established in Turkey's national price schedules.

[00:02:20] Speaker 02:
However, commerce failed to consider that the prices in the national price schedules are set by a Turkish government agency, a fact that reasonably calls into question whether those

[00:02:33] Speaker 02:
price schedules reflect a market basis.

[00:02:37] Speaker 03:
Isn't it true?

[00:02:37] Speaker 03:
I know there are two separate issues here about the grid and the government's involvement.

[00:02:41] Speaker 03:
But isn't it correct that consumers were free to choose to transact with any provider at any price in the system?

[00:02:55] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:02:55] Speaker 03:
And therefore, I'm having a hard time getting around the fact that this is market-based.

[00:03:00] Speaker 03:
If the price was higher than what the electricity was worth, you'd think in this kind of economy, some other provider would come in and undercut that price.

[00:03:09] Speaker 03:
That's the way market-based economies work.

[00:03:12] Speaker 03:
And so reading as much as I could, or as much as I could understand about this, it seemed to me that's the way the system worked.

[00:03:19] Speaker 02:
So you have a system that's heavily dominated by the Turkish government.

[00:03:24] Speaker 02:
You have a national price schedule that's set by a Turkish government agency.

[00:03:30] Speaker 02:
The Commerce Department, in its analysis, because that's what we need to look to, is how did the Commerce Department analyze this issue?

[00:03:39] Speaker 02:
It said, without any support, the Turkish national price schedule, there's no reason to think it's not market-based.

[00:03:49] Speaker 02:
Therefore, since

[00:03:51] Speaker 02:
these prices between ICDAS and other government entities were less than or the same as those price schedules could not be at MTAR.

[00:04:03] Speaker 02:
So it didn't conduct any of the required analysis under its own regulations, 351.511, as to figure out whenever you have purchases by the government under

[00:04:20] Speaker 02:
commerce precedent and regulations, it's required to go through a benchmark analysis.

[00:04:26] Speaker 02:
It never did that.

[00:04:27] Speaker 02:
It never looked at whether there was a market-based price you could use to say, hey, OK, we're going to compare the prices that ICTAS is selling for versus other comparable prices in the market.

[00:04:44] Speaker 02:
Or if that wasn't available, because you have a market dominated by the Turkish government in terms of electricity, is there a world market price?

[00:04:53] Speaker 02:
We had put a world market price on the record.

[00:04:57] Speaker 02:
Commerce never looked at it, never talked about it, never mentioned it.

[00:05:02] Speaker 02:
If that wasn't available, then it would be required to go to what's called a tier three analysis.

[00:05:06] Speaker 02:
Never any discussion of that.

[00:05:08] Speaker 02:
So in terms of the way commerce handled this issue,

[00:05:12] Speaker 02:
It completely ignored, again, its own precedent, its own regulations.

[00:05:20] Speaker 04:
Well, its regulations specifically are directed to LTAR, not MTAR, right?

[00:05:25] Speaker 04:
And there appears to be at least some authority.

[00:05:29] Speaker 04:
It looked to me like it was somewhat mixed, but some authority for the proposition that they would not necessarily apply that regulation to MTAR situations as opposed to LTAR.

[00:05:40] Speaker 02:
So Your Honor, I would respectfully disagree with that.

[00:05:42] Speaker 02:
If you take a look at the preamble to the regulations, Commerce says we're not going to do a separate provision for MTAR.

[00:05:53] Speaker 04:
Because we don't have enough experience with MTAR.

[00:05:55] Speaker 02:
Well, it says we're generally going to apply the LTAR analysis to it.

[00:05:58] Speaker 02:
And that's what they've done in other cases.

[00:06:01] Speaker 02:
I didn't read it to be quite that specific.

[00:06:03] Speaker 04:
I read it to suggest that we may apply the LTAR analysis.

[00:06:10] Speaker 04:
Right now, we don't have enough experience with the MTAR situation to feel that we want to lock ourselves into the regulation.

[00:06:18] Speaker 04:
Is that not a fair reading of the preamble?

[00:06:20] Speaker 02:
I think that's a little too restrictive, Your Honor.

[00:06:21] Speaker 02:
In my view, it's saying we're going to generally apply the LTAR analysis.

[00:06:25] Speaker 02:
But beyond that, it actually has done that in other cases, as we've cited, the uranium from France case, for example.

[00:06:31] Speaker 02:
And that's what it's done in the limited cases that are out there.

[00:06:34] Speaker 02:
It has applied that provision to the MTAR analysis.

[00:06:42] Speaker 04:
Now, you make a point in your brief that because the NPS rate is regulated, is fixed, it's not market responsive, that the discounted price below the NPS must not be marketed.

[00:07:02] Speaker 04:
I didn't see that as a necessarily following.

[00:07:06] Speaker 04:
I mean, it's not discounted by X amount.

[00:07:07] Speaker 04:
I gather that it's

[00:07:08] Speaker 04:
It's a product of negotiated transactions.

[00:07:13] Speaker 02:
So our concern was the way that commerce applied its analysis in this case.

[00:07:19] Speaker 02:
It said, again, without any evidence or analysis, that the national price schedule was market-based.

[00:07:27] Speaker 02:
Therefore, since these other prices were less, that was sufficient.

[00:07:32] Speaker 02:
So for example, let's assume, I think we put this in our brief,

[00:07:37] Speaker 02:
you have a price that's $2 a kilowatt for the national price schedule, and the actual market price should have been $1.

[00:07:48] Speaker 02:
So the fact that, let's say, ICTAS is selling to the government at $1.50 a kilowatt, that is still at MTAR.

[00:07:58] Speaker 04:
Sure, but why wouldn't you expect, if these discounted prices are the product of negotiated transactions,

[00:08:07] Speaker 04:
that the price that the two parties would reach would be $1.

[00:08:11] Speaker 04:
And therefore, the fact that the starting point was regulated is insignificant.

[00:08:18] Speaker 02:
Well, so first again, looking at Commerce's analysis, they didn't go through that analysis.

[00:08:24] Speaker 02:
Commerce simply said the national price schedule is a market-based price.

[00:08:30] Speaker 02:
These prices are less.

[00:08:32] Speaker 02:
Therefore, I missed like $0.02 or $0.03.

[00:08:34] Speaker 02:
Their analysis is very brief.

[00:08:36] Speaker 02:
Therefore, the prices that ICTAS is charging cannot be at MTAR.

[00:08:43] Speaker 02:
That's the sum total of their analysis.

[00:08:46] Speaker 02:
So what I'm saying is you have to go through this under the statute.

[00:08:52] Speaker 02:
Statute requires commerce to look at prevailing market conditions.

[00:08:55] Speaker 02:
It has, in my view, the preamble.

[00:08:58] Speaker 02:
And in addition to that, its own precedent in terms of the cases where it is applied MTAR has to go through this benchmarking and tier analysis.

[00:09:06] Speaker 02:
to figure out whether those sales are at MTAR.

[00:09:09] Speaker 02:
And it simply did not do that.

[00:09:16] Speaker 02:
Secondly, in terms of sales to the grid, Commerce found that sales to the grid are made through wholesale market run by the Turkish government agency, TEAS, acknowledged that it has a role as a market facilitator,

[00:09:33] Speaker 02:
settlement functions, but in addition that it, quote, obtains electricity from generators.

[00:09:45] Speaker 03:
Wait a minute.

[00:09:46] Speaker 03:
Commerce concluded the government doesn't purchase electricity on the grid, right?

[00:09:50] Speaker 02:
Yeah.

[00:09:50] Speaker 03:
So they said- So isn't that probative of what we're discussing here, what we're analyzing here?

[00:09:56] Speaker 02:
So Commerce said that TEOS

[00:10:00] Speaker 02:
obtains electricity on the grid, but does not pay for it or purchase it.

[00:10:05] Speaker 02:
So our contention is, first, they completely ignore the applicable law under Law 6446, Article 8.1, which specifically authorizes TAOS to purchase electricity on the grid.

[00:10:22] Speaker 02:
Secondly, under the regulations, the balancing settlement regulations, under Article 8.3,

[00:10:29] Speaker 02:
It actually mandates that TEAS purchase energy via the balancing power market.

[00:10:39] Speaker 02:
Commerce never mentions those to either the statute or the regulation in terms of its analysis as to whether or not TEAS purchased electricity.

[00:10:54] Speaker 02:
It simply points to

[00:10:56] Speaker 02:
on Article 9 in the regulations, which says that TEAS can't make or lose money in its market facilitation operations.

[00:11:09] Speaker 02:
In other words, where it is issuing invoices, where it's helping payment settlement issues and the like.

[00:11:19] Speaker 02:
And we don't disagree with that.

[00:11:21] Speaker 02:
The problem is that Article 9 doesn't address

[00:11:25] Speaker 02:
The other obligation of TEAS, which is to make sure there's no shortfall on the grid.

[00:11:34] Speaker 02:
And to do that, it purchases electricity so that demands on the grid are met.

[00:11:42] Speaker 02:
And that's the whole point of this provision under Article 8.1 in the law and under Article 8.3 in the balancing and settlement.

[00:11:55] Speaker 02:
regulations.

[00:11:57] Speaker 02:
So commerce never says anything about those regulations and its analysis.

[00:12:04] Speaker 02:
And then in addition, ICDAS itself has now admitted in its brief that its own sales listing includes Teos as a customer.

[00:12:14] Speaker 02:
So not only do you have this legal requirement that Teos purchase electricity, again,

[00:12:22] Speaker 02:
commerce never dealt with the applicable law or regulations.

[00:12:26] Speaker 02:
And in fact, ICTAS has now admitted that Teos is a customer.

[00:12:31] Speaker 02:
It's listed on their sales listing.

[00:12:35] Speaker 03:
You're into your rebuttals, so why don't we hear from the government?

[00:13:02] Speaker 01:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:13:05] Speaker 01:
Commerce reasonably determined that the government of Turkey provides no counter-available benefit to producers of electricity by way of the two channels that are under review here by which electricity is sold in Turkey.

[00:13:17] Speaker 01:
The first is the wholesale on the grid market, and the second is through bilateral contracts in the retail market.

[00:13:24] Speaker 03:
through the free consumer program.

[00:13:26] Speaker 03:
I wanted to address the last argument that your friend gave with regard to, too many acronyms from me for here, but the TEAS and the evidence record that demonstrated their participation in purchase of electricity.

[00:13:40] Speaker 01:
So the TEAS is the system operator of the electricity market, and that's the on-the-grid sales.

[00:13:46] Speaker 01:
And commerce here found and is supported by responses from the government of Turkey as well as IGDA.

[00:13:54] Speaker 01:
The TEAS serves as kind of this clearinghouse for electricity purchases on the wholesale market.

[00:14:00] Speaker 01:
So the wholesale market are transactions between power producers or generators and distributors.

[00:14:06] Speaker 01:
And TEAS is a government entity that facilitates that exchange.

[00:14:12] Speaker 01:
Prices are not set by TEAS.

[00:14:15] Speaker 01:
Our tech does not disagree with that.

[00:14:17] Speaker 01:
Rather, TEAS creates a market by which bids and offers are made

[00:14:21] Speaker 01:
a day ahead of the transactions being made.

[00:14:25] Speaker 01:
And then again, in a balancing market that happens just hours before the actual transactions are made to account for any shortfalls that may have resulted from the day ahead market.

[00:14:38] Speaker 01:
ARTAC mentions that Teos appears as a customer on one of Iktas' sales lists.

[00:14:46] Speaker 01:
And the reason for that is simple.

[00:14:47] Speaker 01:
It's because these transactions that are made on the grid are double blind.

[00:14:52] Speaker 01:
So buyers and sellers of electricity never know who the other participant is.

[00:14:57] Speaker 01:
Teas is middleman, so to speak.

[00:14:59] Speaker 01:
And so the seller of electricity is invoicing Teas for the amount that is consumed.

[00:15:04] Speaker 03:
So you're saying Teas never purchases any electricity.

[00:15:08] Speaker 03:
At most, it's acting transaction by transaction as an agent.

[00:15:13] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:15:14] Speaker 01:
It's a facilitator.

[00:15:15] Speaker 01:
Is an escrow, in effect?

[00:15:17] Speaker 01:
It's a facilitator, I would say.

[00:15:19] Speaker 04:
But at some point, the electricity, is it at some point in the, nominally at least, in TAOS's ownership?

[00:15:29] Speaker 01:
TAOS never takes title to the electricity.

[00:15:32] Speaker 01:
So there's something on the record that supports that.

[00:15:35] Speaker 01:
And banks, private banks, actually facilitate the financial transaction piece of that.

[00:15:41] Speaker 01:
At most, TAOS and the markets financial settlement piece of that is a clearinghouse.

[00:15:49] Speaker 01:
of sorts.

[00:15:52] Speaker 01:
And the argument is that by way of this balancing market that is secondary to the primary day ahead trading market, Teos does have a role in ensuring that there's enough electricity in the market so there is not a shortfall.

[00:16:08] Speaker 01:
But again, there is no record evidence.

[00:16:11] Speaker 01:
And in fact, there is direct record evidence to the contrary that Teos ever purchases electricity.

[00:16:17] Speaker 04:
This is the evidence from the government of Turkey saying that it doesn't purchase?

[00:16:23] Speaker 01:
That is correct.

[00:16:25] Speaker 01:
In addition to that, although this was not discussed at length, ICTAS submitted its own response to some questionnaires in describing the mechanisms of how Teos can go about balancing the market.

[00:16:40] Speaker 01:
In particular, when there is a shortfall, Teos has the authority

[00:16:45] Speaker 01:
to send signals or instructions to a generator to, say, generate more power within a certain window.

[00:16:53] Speaker 01:
And that's one of the balancing tools that it uses in the primary and the secondary reserve market.

[00:16:59] Speaker 01:
But again, that is not the same as purchasing.

[00:17:02] Speaker 01:
And on this record, we don't have any evidence that a purchase was made.

[00:17:05] Speaker 01:
The only evidence that our tax sites do to the contrary is inferences from these regulations

[00:17:13] Speaker 01:
that give TASC the authority to engage in balancing.

[00:17:17] Speaker 04:
What about the sales on bilateral contracts?

[00:17:21] Speaker 04:
And Mr. Shane was emphasizing that the NPS is, in fact, a regulated price contrary to commerce's suggestion, and that the discounted price is therefore not a market price, or can't be inferred to be a market price.

[00:17:40] Speaker 01:
Well, the NPS doesn't apply to these free consumers, so there is in the retail market between... Fill me in on that, because my understanding was that the negotiated contracts were negotiated at a discount from the NPS, right?

[00:18:03] Speaker 01:
The prices end up being a discount from the NPS.

[00:18:08] Speaker 04:
They don't depend on the NPS.

[00:18:11] Speaker 01:
Correct.

[00:18:11] Speaker 01:
Because the whole purpose of the free contracts or the free consumers is that they're not regulated at all by this.

[00:18:18] Speaker 01:
It's called AMRA, the Energy Market Regulator.

[00:18:20] Speaker 01:
OK.

[00:18:20] Speaker 04:
Well, what about the question of whether the NPS is regulated or whether it is a market rate?

[00:18:26] Speaker 01:
Well, they are set prices.

[00:18:29] Speaker 01:
There is a price schedule that NPS uses for all the retail electricity

[00:18:35] Speaker 01:
in Turkey.

[00:18:36] Speaker 04:
Is it market driven or is it not?

[00:18:39] Speaker 01:
Well, there hasn't been any evidence put on the record and our tax doesn't point to any and as this court knows, you know, it's the petitioner's burden to make the record here, that there's anything other than a market rate that's being used.

[00:18:53] Speaker 01:
So even if we were to engage in less than adequate remuneration,

[00:18:57] Speaker 01:
you know, regulatory analysis there, there has to be some indication that this price does not reflect a market rate.

[00:19:05] Speaker 01:
And that market rate does not have to be in accordance with, you know, free market principles like we may be accustomed to here in the United States.

[00:19:14] Speaker 01:
But they haven't pointed to anything.

[00:19:15] Speaker 01:
Instead, ARTAC assumes because there is a price schedule, I think what's important, what is left out of the price schedule, the discussion of it that ARTAC makes is that it's not one price that applies to all consumers.

[00:19:27] Speaker 01:
Different categories of consumers have different prices.

[00:19:31] Speaker 04:
So the point you've just raised is one that was interesting to me in your brief.

[00:19:35] Speaker 04:
You say that, well, it could either be a market price, or it could be consistent with the way prices are set in the particular country.

[00:19:42] Speaker 04:
And in either event, it's not a countervailing subsidy.

[00:19:46] Speaker 04:
But suppose you have a country in which the government has decided that they will subsidize energy

[00:19:56] Speaker 04:
by setting all prices much higher than the market price would be.

[00:20:01] Speaker 04:
Are you saying that in that setting there would be no countervailing subsidy, no subsidy of a large producer that is getting the benefit of that increased price that is being paid?

[00:20:15] Speaker 01:
I think it depends on the inputs that go into determining that price.

[00:20:20] Speaker 04:
if that is, in fact, a price that's- Let's just assume, I'll make it really simplistic, I mean, let's assume that just the government decides everybody should have electricity that's only going to cost half what it would if we went by a market system and then pays these large amounts of money from the government to all producers of electricity in order to offset the losses that they would otherwise sustain.

[00:20:47] Speaker 04:
Are you saying that's okay and that that would indicate there's no subsidy?

[00:20:53] Speaker 01:
I think that's what the whole purpose of the tier 3 analysis is, is to see if the prices that are set, do they cover losses?

[00:21:00] Speaker 01:
Do they cover the costs that are being incurred to produce whatever this good or service is?

[00:21:05] Speaker 01:
Are they applied uniformly to all participants in that market?

[00:21:10] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:21:11] Speaker 04:
Now that leads to the question of whether the regulation for LTAR should apply, at least in spirit, if not by letter in this case.

[00:21:23] Speaker 04:
And Mr. Shane said that the preamble indicates that it should be applied.

[00:21:28] Speaker 04:
Your position on that?

[00:21:29] Speaker 01:
Well, it didn't need to be applied here because we're not talking about LTAR.

[00:21:32] Speaker 01:
We're talking about more than adequate preamble.

[00:21:34] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:21:34] Speaker 04:
And he's saying that MTAR was, by the terms of the preamble,

[00:21:40] Speaker 04:
intended to be included, at least in the spirit of the regulation, if not by letter.

[00:21:45] Speaker 01:
We don't disagree that commerce would have been, by the preamble of that regulation, would have been free to adopt such an approach.

[00:21:53] Speaker 01:
But it didn't need to do so here.

[00:21:56] Speaker 01:
And the reason is because it looked at the process by which these contracts were negotiated and those prices were reached.

[00:22:04] Speaker 01:
And it said there couldn't have been more than adequate remuneration because there was no

[00:22:10] Speaker 01:
non-market price that was influencing the prices here that control these contracts.

[00:22:18] Speaker 01:
And so it was never triggered, and it was not required to engage in that analysis.

[00:22:28] Speaker 01:
If there are no further questions, we respectfully request that this court affirm the ruling below, Sustaining Commerce's Final Extermination.

[00:22:34] Speaker 01:
And I will see the rest of my time to discuss.

[00:22:48] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors, if it may please the court.

[00:22:53] Speaker 00:
Starting with the picking up on the last topic, the topic of the sales to the free consumers, there has been discussion on whether the MTI regulations, the LTAR regulations should apply to the MTI regulations.

[00:23:08] Speaker 00:
And unlike my colleague here, we have a slightly

[00:23:12] Speaker 00:
different reading of the preamble, and the preamble is not as forceful in stating that the L-char regulations should apply to this situation.

[00:23:21] Speaker 00:
And if that were the case, there probably would be a regulation in commerce in title

[00:23:28] Speaker 00:
and 19 CFR, but there isn't.

[00:23:31] Speaker 00:
However, the preamble does provide some commentary on what would be considered as more than adequate remuneration.

[00:23:41] Speaker 00:
And I'm citing for the preamble.

[00:23:43] Speaker 00:
And it says that when we talk about a firm paying less for inputs than it otherwise would pay or receiving more revenue than it otherwise would earn, we are referring to the lower price that it pays to acquire the thing provided by the government

[00:23:57] Speaker 00:
or the increased revenue it receives as a result of the government action.

[00:24:02] Speaker 00:
Now, if we apply this principle to the transactions here, then they don't describe the sales of electricity by ICTASH to the free consumers, because ICTASH, in fact, received more revenue selling to parties that are not affiliated with the government.

[00:24:21] Speaker 00:
because the prices were negotiated.

[00:24:23] Speaker 00:
And what the record actually shows is that some of the prices that IKDASH sold to private parties were higher, so the discount was lower, than what it offered to the government, to the three government-related entities.

[00:24:38] Speaker 00:
So that doesn't seem consistent.

[00:24:40] Speaker 00:
That negates the idea that there is a benefit that was provided

[00:24:45] Speaker 00:
to ICTASH by selling to these three government-affiliated parties.

[00:24:51] Speaker 00:
So what is certain is that the prices negotiated with the free consumers were lower than the national price schedule.

[00:24:58] Speaker 00:
And because they were lower, ICTASH could have actually obtained higher revenue by just selling its electricity to regular consumers.

[00:25:10] Speaker 00:
And the vast majority of ICTASH's sales during the POR

[00:25:14] Speaker 00:
private party pre-consumers were not to the government.

[00:25:18] Speaker 00:
And in fact, the sales to the public pre-consumers was only 0.4% of its total sales of electricity to pre-consumers.

[00:25:29] Speaker 00:
On the issue of market-based prices, one of the issues where we disagree strongly with Petitioner

[00:25:40] Speaker 00:
is this characterization of the Turkish electricity market as being dominated by the government of Turkey.

[00:25:46] Speaker 00:
In fact, what the questionnaire responses provide is that the government of Turkey entities accounted for less than 25% of the total electric power generation during the period of review.

[00:26:02] Speaker 00:
And that is at appendix page 212.

[00:26:05] Speaker 00:
In addition, in the market, there are participants that are both private and public.

[00:26:13] Speaker 00:
So we're not in a situation where you have a market that is dominated by the government, where there is distortion because of that.

[00:26:22] Speaker 00:
There are market forces not only because there is a negotiation of the prices from the tariff schedule,

[00:26:29] Speaker 00:
but also because the participant, the availability of this good, comes from both public and private sources.

[00:26:36] Speaker 00:
So in some sense, there is no need to go through the tier three benchmark that my colleagues have discussed, because there are actually private transactions in the country at issue that could be used for an analysis whether there is a benefit.

[00:26:56] Speaker 00:
And the government found

[00:26:58] Speaker 00:
based on the evidence before it, well, these transactions offer more revenue to IKDASH.

[00:27:04] Speaker 00:
There can be no benefit per se.

[00:27:09] Speaker 03:
Your time has expired.

[00:27:16] Speaker 02:
If you have a little time, I'll rebuttal.

[00:27:19] Speaker 02:
Here are ours.

[00:27:21] Speaker 02:
So first, in terms of sales to the grid,

[00:27:28] Speaker 02:
an inference we are making.

[00:27:29] Speaker 02:
If you look at, again, the legal structure in Turkey, both under the law and the regulations, TEOS is authorized and, in fact, is mandated to purchase electricity to make up for any potential shortfalls.

[00:27:45] Speaker 02:
In addition, ICDAS itself has admitted that TEOS is listed as a customer.

[00:27:53] Speaker 02:
There's no explanation that somehow this is because they're a go-between.

[00:27:56] Speaker 02:
They are listed as a customer of IKDAS.

[00:28:00] Speaker 02:
I think the combination of a law, the regulations, and that fact should be definitive in determining whether or not TEAS makes purchases on the grid.

[00:28:10] Speaker 04:
With regard to- What do you do about the government of Turkey declaration that says that's not so?

[00:28:17] Speaker 02:
Well, so the Turkish government says

[00:28:23] Speaker 02:
TEAS obtains electricity.

[00:28:24] Speaker 02:
They admit that.

[00:28:26] Speaker 02:
But they claim it doesn't purchase it.

[00:28:28] Speaker 02:
I'm not sure how you obtain it without purchasing it, when in fact the Turkish regulations and law say that TEAS shall purchase electricity to make up for these shortfalls.

[00:28:42] Speaker 02:
In addition, and there's a World Bank study 2015 that says that generators actually make additional revenue

[00:28:52] Speaker 02:
from agreements with Teas on the wholesale market, the ancillary market.

[00:28:59] Speaker 02:
I don't know how generators could make additional revenue from Teas if Teas isn't buying electricity from them.

[00:29:06] Speaker 02:
And it doesn't wash with the evidence.

[00:29:08] Speaker 02:
I think that's the problem with the Turkish government's position that Teas obtains it but doesn't pay for it.

[00:29:14] Speaker 02:
It's just inconsistent with everything else on the record, including Iktas's own sales listings.

[00:29:19] Speaker 02:
And then in terms of the

[00:29:23] Speaker 02:
the free consumer market in terms of the price schedules that are set by EMRA.

[00:29:31] Speaker 02:
We did show that there's evidence on the record that those are not market-based prices.

[00:29:37] Speaker 02:
First, they're set by the government.

[00:29:39] Speaker 02:
Second, the statute itself that talks about setting those prices doesn't say anything about their market base.

[00:29:45] Speaker 02:
They'll be set based on price supply and demand, anything along those lines.

[00:29:52] Speaker 02:
In addition,

[00:29:53] Speaker 02:
It says that the reason they're instituting it, at least one reason, is to eliminate price differences among regions in the country.

[00:30:00] Speaker 02:
I mean, that's not a market-based position in terms of how those prices are being set.

[00:30:07] Speaker 02:
In addition, there's evidence on the record that the national price schedules are set to transfer funds from distributors that are making money to those that are losing money.

[00:30:23] Speaker 02:
Again, that's not a particularly market-based rationale.

[00:30:29] Speaker 02:
And then in terms of ICTAS's arguments about the relative prices of some of the sales it makes in terms of some of the free consumer prices, Commerce never touched on that.

[00:30:41] Speaker 02:
I mean, you've got to look and see what Commerce's analysis was.

[00:30:44] Speaker 02:
Commerce simply said, again, the national price schedule

[00:30:49] Speaker 02:
There's no reason to think it's not market-based despite all the evidence I just indicated that there is a lot of evidence that it is not market-based and then simply said the other prices are less therefore that's sufficient for our analysis without doing the required 531, 511 benchmark analysis talking about the tiers.

[00:31:09] Speaker 02:
I mean if you take a look at the Maverick 2 case you can see how the analysis is supposed to go which commerce never conducted in this case.

[00:31:17] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:31:19] Speaker 02:
We thank both sides and the case is submitted.

[00:31:22] Speaker 02:
The final case for