The Commerce Department erroneously used Malaysian tariff schedule subheading 4402.90.1000 as the surrogate value for coal-based carbonized materials in an antidumping review of activated carbon instead of the broader Harmonized System subheading 4402.90, exporters Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. and Carbon Activated Corp. argued. Filing their opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the exporters said Commerce's decision was based on "inaccurate and unsupported factual findings" (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2135).
The Commerce Department legally found that importer Valeo North America's T-series aluminum sheet is covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Nov. 8 opinion. The case was remanded so that Commerce could address evidence that Valeo's product undergoes heat treatment, barring it from being classified as subject 3XXX-series core. Judge Mark Barnett said that Valeo did not present a "cogent challenge" to Commerce's finding that Valeo's T-series sheet "undergoes a combination of annealing and cold-working" that doesn't bar classification as a 3XXX-series alloy.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. 8 on AD/CVD proceedings:
CBP announced it began a formal Enforce and Protect Act investigation on whether U.S. importer Besttn Industry evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on cast iron soil pipe and fittings from China and has imposed interim measures due to reasonable suspicion that Besttn entered covered merchandise.
Antidumping duty respondent Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret filed a second notice of supplemental authorities in its AD case at the Court of International Trade to point to a separate AD review involving a duty drawback adjustment and Commerce's requirement that only closed inward processing certificates be included in the numerator of Commerce's per unit calculation (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00616).
Counsel for importer Larson-Juhl US will proceed with the company's customs case alongside two cases from the relevant exporter, China Cornici Co., which is also represented by the same counsel. Submitting a joint status report to the Court of International Trade, Clark Hill attorneys said that they made the decision to allow the three cases to "proceed independently" instead of staying one of them following a meeting with the court in which Judge Stephen Vaden "asked the parties to reconsider the request to continue the stay and to discuss the order in which the three cases should proceed" (Larson-Juhl US v. United States, CIT # 23-00032).
The Commerce Department allegedly erred by not including countries producing like products as possible surrogates in its administrative review of the antidumping duty order on 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane (R-134a) from China, the American HFC Coalition and some of its members -- Arkema, The Chemours Company, Honeywell International and Mexichem Fluor -- said in their Nov. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade (The American HFC Coalition v. U.S., CIT # 23-00210).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's key decision in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. United States doesn't apply to an Enforce and Protect Act case brought by importer All One God Faith since the importer's entries are all liquidated, the U.S. told the appellate court. Submitting a letter to the court on Nov. 7, the government argued that the court "has not addressed its jurisdiction over cases where all entries were liquidated with antidumping duties and those liquidations became final and conclusive," adding that this fact distinguishes it from Royal Brush (All One God Faith v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1078).
The Commerce Department failed to adjust the export price for Chinese exporter Trina Solar and continued to use the "unreliable" price of Romanian glass over Trina's objections, the exporter argued in a Nov. 6 complaint to the Court of International Trade (Trina Solar v. U.S., CIT # 23-00213).
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