Perfectus Aluminum Inc. issued a scathing rebuttal to a story published by the Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) late last week accusing the California firm of being pursued by the Federal government for unpaid import duties.
In a press release issued Thursday evening, Perfectus’ marketing communications firm responded to a story posted to AEC’s blog identifying their client as being a related party to a Federal government action “seeking unpaid duties from Perfectus for goods brought into the country.” Calling this a “false narrative,” the release responds by saying that the government is instead working to apply a Commerce Department ruling regarding retroactive antidumping duties that was handed down earlier this year to impose such duties upon imports arriving in the United States as far back as 2011. Such an attempt is little more than an “obviously egregious government overstep,” opines the presser before taking the AEC to task for its “hypocrisy in lauding an “obvious violation of fair play and due process” that it would likely condemn had the action been taken against one of its own members.
The press release continues by condemning what Perfectus sees as the AEC’s wrongheaded stance on the very issues at question in the suit. Saying that AEC’s position is that releasing Perfectus’ products upon the open market would do harm to American producers, the firm calls out what it sees as a sadly ironic result to the AEC’s arguments.
It bears repeating that at the time Perfectus’ products were detained—in direct response to AEC’s victory before Commerce—they were in a port leaving the United States. If the AEC gets its wish and Perfectus’ goods are indeed forfeited, they would be liquidated and would, by law, be released in some form into the open market: the very outcome AEC purports to fear most. [Emphasis in original]
The press release closes by alleging that the AEC has done little more than built a “false narrative” of context-free quotes harvested from a civil complaint, which it considers “both unethical and untruthful.”
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal in January, the United States Department of Homeland Security seized US$25 million in aluminium from Perfectus. The WSJ report said that the stockpile was connected to Chinese aluminum magnate Liu Zhongtian, and that court records, business filings, and sources familiar with the company showed that Perfectus was founded by Liu’s son and is currently being run by one of Liu’s close business associates.
Liu Zhongtian, China Zhongwang, and Perfectus have all categorically denied any and all allegations of wrongdoing in the case.