The Court of International Trade on July 22 sustained the Commerce Department's 2020-21 review of the countervailing duty order on common alloy aluminum sheet from India. Judge Joseph Laroski said Commerce's decisions to find that the provision of coal for less than adequate remuneration was de facto specific and to use U.N. Comtrade data as a benchmark in measuring the coal subsidy were supported by substantial evidence. The agency's specificity finding rested on the fact that respondent Hindalco, "like a typical utility provider, engages in 'power generation,'" and that two "power" industries "appear to use a substantial majority of the coal provided by" India's state-run coal supplier, Coal India.
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. pushed back July 16 against exporter Soc Trang Seafood Joint Stock Co.’s challenge to the Commerce Department’s surrogate value calculation of Vietnamese land rental prices in a countervailing duty review (see 2501270012). The government said Commerce’s use of Thai data was supported by substantial evidence (Soc Trang Seafood Joint Stock Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00030).
Domestic chlorinated isocyanurates producer Bio-Lab argued in a July 15 motion for judgment that the Commerce Department should have used Mexico, not Romania, as the primary surrogate in an antidumping duty review of chlorinated isocyanurates from China (Bio-Lab v. United States, CIT # 25-00054).
The Court of International Trade on July 18 granted the government's motion for default judgment against importer Rayson Global and its owner Doris Cheng for negligently failing to pay ordinary, Section 301 and antidumping duties on its innerspring entries. Judge Timothy Stanceu granted the motion, after previously rejecting it for insufficiently pleaded facts, ordering Rayson and Cheng to pay a nearly $3.4 million penalty and all unpaid duties, taxes and cash deposits on the unliquidated entries in the case (U.S. v. Rayson Global, Inc. and Doris Cheng, CIT # 23-00201).
The Commerce Department properly calculated the antidumping duty rate for the non-individually investigated respondents in an AD review by averaging the identical adverse facts available rates of the two mandatory respondents, the Court of International Trade held on July 18. Judge Gary Katzmann held that while Commerce said it took a simple average of the AFA rates and not a weighted average of the rates, which is the "expected method" for determining the all-others rate, the resulting 21.1% rate isn't a deviation from the expected method and is thus "presumptively reasonable."
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 18 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 17 issued its mandate in an antidumping duty case following its decision to deny exporter Carbon Activated's bid for a panel rehearing of the court's decision. In its decision, CAFC Judges Richard Taranto, Alvin Schall and Raymond Chen upheld the Commerce Department's selection of the surrogate value for carbonized material in the 2018-19 review of the AD order on Chinese activated carbon (see 2505090048) (Carbon Activated Tianjin v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2135).
Importer Gum Products International filed a pair of complaints at the Court of International Trade on July 17 to contest the Commerce Department's scope rulings concerning the company's oilfield equipment lubricant and food ingredient products. In both scope determinations, Commerce said the importer's products fall under the scope of the antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China (Gum Products International v. United States, CIT #'s 25-00108, -00109).