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 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 Court of International Trade doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear a case involving a textile company’s dispute with CBP, saying the company sought relief under the wrong statute, Judge Timothy Stanceu held in a March 10 opinion. The trade court found Printing Textiles, doing business as Berger Textiles, didn’t show why the denied protest challenge should be filed under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, and not Section 1581(a). Berger filed a notice of appeal the next business day.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
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).
The Commerce Department properly found that a type of aluminum sheet imported from Turkey by AA Metals was covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a March 10 opinion.
Federal judges last week questioned the Commerce Department's policies on the initiation of antidumping duty reviews for exporters with no entries of subject merchandise, asking why Commerce could continue an AD review if there were no entries on the record (Canadian Solar International v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 20-2162).
Judge Stephen Vaden of the Court of International Trade said he did not understand why CIT cases involving presidential decisions or constitutional claims are not allowed direct appeals to the Supreme Court. Speaking March 8 on the "Original Jurisdiction" podcast, Vaden detailed the way constitutional claims are heard at CIT and explained how they are different from other federal courts.
Roger Ng, former managing director of The Goldman Sachs Group, was sentenced on March 9 to 10 years in prison for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as part of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said. Federal prosecutors sought 15 years for the investment banker.
The Court of International Trade should halt proceedings in an antidumping duty case filed by HiSteel until after the deadline to appeal the trade court's recent decision in Stupp v. U.S., AD petitioner Nucor Tubular Products said in a March 9 motion. In Stupp, CIT said that the Commerce Department adequately addressed all questions raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the use of the Cohen's d test as part of the differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping (see 2302270049) -- a "virtually identical" issue to one argued in HiSteel's case, Nucor said (HiSteel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00142).