The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 9 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Importer Sigma Corp. dropped its antidumping duty scope case at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 4, filing a stipulation of dismissal. Sigma initially filed the case in 2019 to contest the Commerce Department's scope ruling on the company's Safelet and Unilet brand fire-protection weld outlets under the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China (see 1901080013). The decision to drop the case comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld a jury's determination that Sigma is liable under the False Claims Act for lying about whether its goods were subject to AD (see 2506240037) and a separate scope proceeding before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit subjecting the goods to AD (Sigma v. United States, CIT # 19-00003).
The Commerce Department erred in not applying adverse facts available to antidumping duty respondent Tenaris Mexico for its failure to properly explain its "nonstandard basket category Threading codes" in the 2022-23 administrative review of the AD order on oil country tubular goods from Mexico, petitioner U.S. Steel argued in a Dec. 4 complaint at the Court of International Trade (United States Steel v. United States, CIT # 25-00243).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 8 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's exclusion of seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources Corp. from the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China (see 2510090016). The trade court said the exclusion of the bricks comports with a 2014 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which led to the standard that the addition of any amount of alumina to a magnesia carbon brick excludes it from the orders. The case was filed by Fedmet to contest the scope ruling, which came after a referral in an AD/CVD evasion case, on 11 of Fedmet's brick types. After CIT initially remanded the case to address the CAFC ruling, Commerce said seven of Fedmet's brick types are excluded from the order, since they have a non-zero alumina content. The government in appealing the case joins the petitioner, who has already asked the appellate court for expedited consideration of the matter (see 2511260067) (Fedmet Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00117).
Four related exporters, led by Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret, filed a stipulation of dismissal in an antidumping duty case it filed earlier this year at the Court of International Trade (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. v. United States, CIT # 25-00137).
Trade lawyers are split over the necessity of filing lawsuits now to secure potential International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariff refunds should the Supreme Court invalidate them, according to interviews with lawyers.
Court of International Trade Judge M. Miller Baker partly remanded and partly sustained Dec. 5 the Commerce Department’s countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Malaysia, saying Commerce failed to answer the “basic” question of how it now calculates the denominator in an entered value adjustment decision and didn’t address concerns about the use of land prices from one Malaysian state as a benchmark for another's.
The Commerce Department can limit its comparator group in assessing whether a certain enterprise or industry is the "predominant user" of a subsidy for purposes of determining de facto specificity, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Dec. 5. Judges Jimmie Reyna, Sharon Prost and Raymond Chen said the limitation on the comparator group must only be "sufficiently reasonable."