The Commerce Department's determination to use acquisition costs as a proxy for costs of production without applying adverse inferences in its antidumping duty investigation covering raw honey from India was necessary to account for the structure of the Indian honey industry, with thousands of beekeepers and middlemen, and derived from lessons learned in a previous AD proceeding involving honey, DOJ argued in a March 17 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., CIT # 22-00195).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential March 21 opinion upheld parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the first administrative review of the countervailing duty order on aluminum foil from China. In a letter to litigants, Judge Timothy Reif gave the parties until March 28 to review any confidential information in the opinion. The plaintiffs, led by Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co., filed a five-count complaint in the proceeding to contest Commerce's calculation of the benchmark for the aluminum sheet, primary aluminum and land for less than adequate remuneration programs. The plaintiffs also contested the agency's decision to reject additional benchmark and land information from Jiangsu Zhongji (Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00133).
The Commerce Department dropped its use of a cost-based particular market situation adjustment in an antidumping duty review for exporter Garg Tube on remand at the Court of International Trade, decreasing the company's dumping rate from 13.90% to 8.42% if the remand results are sustained. The agency said that because of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's holding in Hyundai Steel v. U.S., which found such an adjustment illegal under the 2015 Trade Preferences Extension Act (see 2108050070), it no longer was able to make the adjustment in the 2018-19 administrative review of the AD order on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes from India (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).
The Commerce Department failed to follow a Court of International Trade directive in its remand results concerning Yama Ribbons and Bows' alleged receipt of benefits from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, said Yama in its March 17 response brief (Yama Ribbons and Bows v. U.S., CIT # 20-00059). Yama asked the court to instruct Commerce to apply an appropriate rate for the EBCP not based on adverse facts.
GoPro Camera housings are properly classified as cases under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 4202 rather than parts, the government continued to argue during March 15 oral arguments at the Court of International Trade. The arguments were meant to address GoPro's September motion for judgment (see 2208080041) and the government's response (see 2212140060).
The Commerce Department erred when it used adverse facts available against Korean exporter SeAH Steel Corp.'s alleged benefits under the Export-Import Bank of Korea's (KEXIM's) Performance Guarantee program, SeAH argued in a May 17 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Commerce illegally used adverse facts available in assigning SeAH a 1.33% CVD rate when it found that a 2019 KEXIM guarantee amounted to "untimely new factual information" (SeAH Steel Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00338).
Importer Diamond Tools Technology did not make a "material and false statement" and so did not evade the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on diamond sawblades from China via Thailand, CBP said in remand results filed under protest with the Court of International Trade. CBP said it made its finding to bring the proceeding in line with the trade court's remand order, which said that DTT's "failure to declare" its pre-Dec. 1, 2017, imports as subject to the AD order was not a material and false statement under the Enforce and Protect Act (Diamond Tools Tech. v. Unied States, CIT # 20-00060).
The Commerce Department failed to correctly apply quarterly cost methodology in an antidumping duty review of certain carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length (CTL) plate from Italy, exporter Officine Tecnosider said in a March 17 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Officine Tecnosider v. U.S., CIT # 23-00001).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer Shamrock Building Materials will appeal a Court of International Trade decision upholding CBP's classification of the company's steel conduit tubing imports from Mexico as steel tubing and not insulated fittings, according to a notice of appeal. Shamrock will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The trade court ruled that the "uncontested facts" show the tubing is not insulated and therefore subject to 25% Section 232 steel tariffs (see 2303140035) (Shamrock Building Materials v. U.S., CIT # 20-00074).