The Commerce Department reasonably rejected United Nations Comtrade and Eurostat data on natural gas imports from Russia when spurning the use of a tier-two benchmark for its less than adequate remuneration of a countervailing duty respondent's natural gas purchase prices, the Court of International Trade said. Further, Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that the agency properly denied the use of Eurostat natural gas import data from Norway, Algeria, Libya and Ukraine in a tier-three benchmark calculation, while reasonably selecting International Energy Agency (IEA) data for the benchmark.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department's remand results following an opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over an antidumping duty administrative review should be remanded yet again, mandatory respondent Bosun Tools Co. said in comments at the Court of International Trade. Commerce should have applied neutral facts available instead of adverse facts available when weighing Bosun's country of origin information using a first-in-first-out (FIFO) methodology, Bosun said. Even if this use of AFA is sustained, it should be limited to missing information and not applied to the U.S. sales prices for reported-FIFO sales, as Commerce did, Bosun suggested (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers' Coalition v. United States, CIT #17-00167).
The Court of International Trade extended to Oct. 4 from Sept. 2 the preliminary injunction preventing the liquidation of unliquidated customs entries with Section 301 lists 3 or 4A tariff exposure, said an order signed late Aug. 16 by Judges Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves. The judges also extended to Sept. 3 from Aug. 20 the deadline for CBP to create a repository for the subject customs entries. It’s the court's third deadline extension since Kelly and Choe-Groves ordered CBP to establish the repository in a July 6 preliminary injunction order.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Target's attempt to fight off the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss a customs case at the Court of International Trade falls flat, DOJ argued in an Aug. 13 reply brief. Following practices codified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, CIT properly ordered the reliquidation of improperly liquidated ironing tables from China, DOJ said, backing the court's authority to do so (Target Corp. v. U.S., CIT #21-00162).
The Commerce Department does not need to "poll the industry" to find out if over half of the domestic industry supports an antidumping or countervailing duty petition, Judge Leo Gordon of the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 16 letter. Responding to consolidated plaintiff M S International's request for a remand directing Commerce to poll the industry or "collect additional information establishing whether there was industry support" for the contested AD/CVD petition, Gordon said this request stemmed from a misunderstanding of the law (Pokarna Engineered Stone Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-00127).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood will appeal a Court of International Trade opinion in an anti-circumvention inquiry involving antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the coalition said in a notice of appeal. In the case, the Commerce Department eventually came to find that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports from China were not later-developed merchandise and therefore did not circumvent the AD/CVD orders (see 2107210028). The coalition was the petitioner for the anti-circumvention inquiry and served as the defendant-intervenor in the CIT case (Shelter Forest International Acquisition, Inc. et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #19-00212).
The U.S. will appeal a Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's drop of a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test in an antidumping duty review. In an Aug. 13 filing, the U.S. gave notice of its intent to appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The case was brought by Turkish steel company Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret, which challenged an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey (see 2106170026). Judge Jane Restani ruled that Commerce improperly applied a PMS adjustment in the below-cost test, finding that such adjustments are only allowed when calculating normal value based on constructed value, as opposed to normal value based on home market sales (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. et al v. United States, CIT, Slip Op. 21-75, #20-00015).