The Commerce Department "misapplied the statutory standard" for picking surrogate countries in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam by excluding candidate countries that have a comparable level of economic development, the Court of International Trade ruled in a July 7 opinion made public July 17.
The EU July 14 asked the World Trade Organization to assess whether the U.S. has complied with a dispute panel report finding that U.S. countervailing duties on Spanish olives violated WTO commitments. The EU said the U.S. "has so far failed to comply with" the panel ruling and that the duties, which could shove Spanish olive exporters out of the American market, remain in place.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 17 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department shouldn't have relied on adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review on tapered roller bearings from China for a fully cooperative entity that attempted to obtain information from its suppliers but couldn't secure their cooperation, Chinese bearing exporter Shanghai Tainai Bearing said in a July 13 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Court precedent doesn't require a party to provide information not in its possession and which it can't reasonably obtain, the company said (Shanghai Tainai Bearing v. U.S., CIT # 23-00020).
The Court of International Trade on July 14 upheld the Commerce Department's decisions in an antidumping duty review to disregard respondent Nexteel's accounting method and classify the company's losses from suspension of production lines as general and administrative expenses (G&A) instead of costs of goods sold (COGS). Judge Claire Kelly said that Commerce, in the 2016-2017 administrative review on welded line pipe from South Korea, "adequately explains that the depreciation and other costs" linked with suspended production lines "are more akin to a company-wide cost" instead of a cost of manufacturing borne by specific products.
The Court of International Trade sent back parts of the Commerce Department's 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. Judge M. Miller Baker said that while Commerce understands the concepts of sameness and comparability to "represent different concepts" when picking surrogate nations, the agency "misapplied the statutory standard" by excluding candidate surrogates that had a comparable level of economic development. The judge also upheld Commerce's decision not to grant exporter Dotaseafood a higher rate beyond the countrywide margin for failing to cooperate to the best of its ability given that the company did not rebut the presumption of state control. Lastly, Baker said exporter Nam Viet was legally granted a separate rate after the judge refused to reweigh evidence regarding the company's reporting of its affiliates.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 14 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Kazakh exporter Tau-Ken Temir filed a corrected version of its opening brief in a countervailing duty case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after the court rejected the company's efforts to add new claims to its originally filed brief (see 2306300060). The government and petitioners Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon fought against the effort to add new claims to the brief, claiming that it was an attempt to shoehorn arguments on the agency's new regulations concerning untimely submitted files. The new brief filed by TKT makes corrections requested by the clerk of the court in a case on the CVD investigation on silicon metal from Kazakhstan in which the Commerce Department used adverse facts available due to a missed filing deadline (Tau-Ken Temir v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The Court of International Trade erred by sustaining the Commerce Department’s conclusions regarding cost smoothing, cost reconciliation, and differential pricing in the antidumping duty investigation on wind towers from Canada, respondent Marmem said in a July 10 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Marmen v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 2023-1877).
The Commerce Department legally weight-averaged or "smoothed" antidumping duty respondent Dongkuk S&C Co.'s "disparate" steel plate costs in the AD investigation on utility scale wind towers from South Korea, the government and petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition argued in a pair of reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Dongkuk S&C Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1419).