An importer is asking the Court of International Trade to direct CBP to reliquidate entries of Chinese citric acid anhydrous that Thatcher says CBP improperly liquidated as subject to antidumping and countervailing duties. In its March 31 complaint, Thatcher said that CBP extended liquidation of the entries with neither a "statutory basis" nor the "legal authority" to do so and without instruction from the Commerce Department (Thatcher Company, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00067).
The Commerce Department opened the record on remand to accept Turkish exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi's sections B and C questionnaire responses after the Court of International Trade ruled it was an abuse of discretion to reject the minutes-late submissions. In remand results filed April 1, Commerce dropped the dumping rate for Celik from 53.65% to 17.88%, centering the case on other issues in the antidumping duty investigation (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi A.S. v. U.S., CIT #21-00045).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on March 30 in an antidumping duty case affirming that the Commerce Department cannot make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test. The petitioner, Welspun Tubular, unsuccessfully requested a stay of the mandate so that it could appeal the matter to the Supreme Court (see 2203240063). The appellate court said that a stay of the mandate was not needed to preserve this right. In the case's opinion, the Federal Circuit said that Commerce can only make a PMS adjustment when calculating constructed value, affirming a long line of Court of International Trade decisions (see 2203220082) (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748).
There is no error in the Commerce Department's liquidation instructions, so importer MS Solar's lawsuit under Section 1581(i), the Court of International Trade's "residual" jurisdiction, should be dismissed, the U.S. said in a March 30 reply brief backing its motion to dismiss. Instead, the case should have been filed under Section 1581(c) to contest the antidumping duty review itself, the brief said (MS Solar Investments v. United States, CIT #21-00303).
The Commerce Department erred when it switched its zero percent dumping margin for Greek exporter Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry (CPW) to a 41.04% dumping rate despite the fact that the data was "entirely unchanged," the exporter told the Court of International Trade in a March 31 complaint. CPW also contested Commerce's use of adverse facts available despite the fact that it fully cooperated in the antidumping duty review and the agency's failure to conduct a verification, virtual or otherwise (Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry v. United States, CIT #22-00063).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Taiwanese corrosion-resistant steel products exporters Yieh Phui Enterprise Co. and Prospeity Tieh signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty matter at the Court of International Trade. On remand, Commerce reversed its decision to collapse mandatory respondents Yieh Phui and Synn Industrial Co. with one of their affiliates, Propserity Tieh Enterprise Co., in a bid to bring its stance in line with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. "It is our position that the Department’s decision on the collapsing issue made in the Remand Results is in line with the [Federal Circuit's] decision," Yieh Phui's comments said (Prosperity Tieh Enterprise Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT Consol. #16-00138).
Italian pasta exporters La Molisana and Valdigrano di Flavio Pagani have not provided "compelling reasons" for the Commerce Department to part with its "longstanding" and "reasonable" practice for reporting the protein content of pasta in an antidumping case, the U.S. told the Court of International Trade in a March 28 brief. Rather, the relevant statute, past agency practice and case law all show that Commerce properly based its product-matching criteria on physical characteristics. In doing so, the agency said it legally derived the pasta's protein content -- a physical characteristic -- from the nutrition information on the packaging label (La Molisana v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00291).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the sanctions listing of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, finding that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control provided proper evidence for the listing. The court also held that while Deripaska was found to no longer own two major energy companies, OFAC found him to still operate them, justifying his placement in the Russian sanctions regime.