The Commerce Department is required by its own policies to use the country with the best data as the surrogate country in antidumping duty proceedings, the Catfish Farmers of America and other plaintiffs said in a March 10 reply brief. Although Commerce argued the AD laws didn't require it to look into whether Indonesia offered "superior" data for the 2019-20 review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, the Catfish Farmers pointed to Import Administration Policy Bulletin 04.1, which says if more than one country meets the statutory requirements for surrogates, that Commerce "will rely on values from the country that provides the highest quality data" (Catfish Farmers of America v. United States, CIT # 22-00125).
The Commerce Department should not have granted an non-cooperative Vietnamese frozen fish exporter a separate antidumping rate during an AD review,Green Farms Seafood argued in its March 10 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Green Farms Seafood v. U.S., CIT # 22-00092). Commerce's subsequent averaging of the adverse facts available separate rate with other rates in the review to set a rate for the non-individually investigated companies resulted in Green Farms getting a rate not reflective of economic reality, Green Farms said.
The International Trade Commission correctly used critical circumstances in its investigation of raw honey from Vietnam, the ITC said in its March 10 response brief at the Court of International Trade. The commission asked the court to affirm its determination and to deny a December motion for judgment by the four plaintiffs, Honey Solutions, Sunland Trading, Export Packers Co. and Sweet Harvest Foods (Sweet Harvest Foods, et al. v. United States, CIT # 22-00188).
The Commerce Department properly included sales of solar cells from China to JA Solar USA from antidumping duty respondent Invertec Solar Energy Corp. as U.S. sales, the Court of International Trade ruled March 10. No party contested Commerce's remand results (JA Solar International v. United States, CIT # 21-00514).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Chemical Products Corp. has dropped a suit challenging the Commerce Department's final negative determination of dumping in the antidumping duty investigation on barium chloride from India at the Court of International Trade (Chemical Products Corp. v. United States, CIT, # 23-00021). The case was brought in February and saw little action until CPC requested dismissal March 9. CPC did not respond to requests for comment. DOJ declined to comment on the dismissal.
The Court of International Trade should affirm the Commerce Department's remand results in order to allow a countervailing duty petitioner to potentially appeal aspects of those results to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, petitioner Daikin America said in its March 9 remand comments to the Court of International Trade (Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. v. United States, CIT # 22-00120).
The Commerce Department's subsidy calculation errors in a countervailing duty review on multilayered wood flooring from China resulted in an inaccurate CVD rate for Fine Furniture and other Chinese wood flooring exporters, Fine Furniture argued in a March 9 motion for judgment af the Court of International Trade (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00210).
Dismissing Sea Shepherd New Zealand's and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's challenge of an expired comparability finding for New Zealand's West Coast North Island multispecies set-net and trawl fisheries would allow the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to evade review and take similar action in the future, the conservation groups said in a March 9 brief (Sea Shepherd New Zealand v. U.S., CIT # 20-00112).
A Court of International Trade case concerning the classification of human interface controllers should be suspended under a test case, German multinational technology company Robert Bosch argued in a March 8 motion. The request followed a March 1 test case designation by CIT Judge Timothy Stanceu. Both cases involve the same classification issue and the same material facts, Bosch argued. Separate litigation of each case would raise the possibility of separate judgments, which could yield "very problematic" results, Bosch said (Robert Bosch v. U.S., CIT # 20-00028, # 20-00030).