The U.S. responded Feb. 7 to an Italian pasta exporter’s argument that application of excessive adverse facts available violates the Eighth Amendment, saying the amendment “has no bearing” on antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings. It explained that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circut has found the use of AFA to be “remedial, not punitive” (Pastificio Gentile S.r.l. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00037).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 11 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to reject exporter Pirelli Tyre Co.'s bid for a separate antidumping rate in the third review of the AD order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. Judges Sharon Prost, Richard Taranto and Raymond Chen said that Commerce's third factor for assessing whether the foreign government has de facto control over the separate rate respondent, which addresses the selection of management, doesn't require a link to export activities. The judges also said Commerce properly requires the applicant to "carry a burden of persuasion to justify a separate rate."
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 10 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department unreasonably found that a sales-based particular market situation doesn't exist in Turkey, thus erring in picking Turkey as a third country comparison market in the antidumping duty investigation on melamine from Qatar, petitioner Cornerstone Chemical Co. argued in a Feb. 7 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Cornerstone Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00005).
A domestic steel trade group brought a complaint to the Court of International Trade Feb. 7 alleging that a mandatory respondent in a tire antidumping duty review “was attempting to pass off [a non-market economy] entity as a market-economy entity” and should have been hit with adverse facts available (United Steel, Paper and Forestry International Union v. United States, CIT # 25-00004).
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit questioned counsel for both antidumping respondent Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi and the government on the Commerce Department's decision to use Turkish lira to value Habas' home-market sales in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on cold-rolled steel flat products from Turkey. Judges Kimberly Moore, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham questioned Habas' claim that U.S. dollars should have been used because its home market price negotiations, invoices and records all used U.S. dollars (Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1158).
The Commerce Department reasonably picked the financial statements of San Shing Fastech Corp. to calculate the constructed value profit and indirect selling expenses of respondent Your Standing International in a review of the antidumping duty order on nails from Taiwan, the Court of International Trade held in a Feb. 7 decision. Judge Claire Kelly said the agency appropriately found that San Shing makes "comparable merchandise," has contemporaneous financial statements and sells over 70% of its products to markets outside the U.S.
A World Trade Organization dispute panel issued its report in Vietnam's challenge to U.S. antidumping duty proceedings on fish fillets from Vietnam after both sides agreed to a solution (see 2501230022). The panel concluded the proceeding in light of the "mutually agreed solution." Vietnam brought the suit in 2018 to challenge the U.S. government's imposition of AD cash deposit requirements in the fifth, sixth and seventh reviews of the AD order, covering entries in 2007-2010. Vietnam claimed that the U.S. should have revoked the order following the seventh review and that the U.S. unlawfully used a country-wide AD rate based on adverse facts available against respondents that were not individually investigated.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 7 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade: