The Commerce Department properly found that it had enough industry support to kick off the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products from India, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a Jan. 5 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade's ruling, Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Sharon Prost ruled that Commerce permissibly found that the term "producer" did not include quartz surface product fabricators and that the agency backed its finding that fabricators are not producers with substantial evidence via its six-factor production-related activities test.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Jan. 5 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Modified vertical shaft engines with a vertical take off shaft and a horizontal crankshaft fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc and parts thereof from China (A-570-124/C-570-125), the Commerce Department said in a Dec. 22 scope ruling. The scope ruling applied to modified vertical shaft engines, "such as the modified R210-S engine manufactured by Chongqing Rato Technology Co."
CBP found importer Acmetex evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imported silica fabric from China, according to the results of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation released Jan. 3. CBP used adverse inferences after Acmetex stopped cooperating with the investigation and found that the company likely misrepresented the country of origin and misclassified the silica fabric as "glass cloth fiber" in addition to transshipping covered silica fabric through Canada to the U.S. In the same investigation, CBP found insufficient evidence that a second importer, New Fire, evaded the AD/CVD orders.
Two recent Court of International Trade decisions are relevant to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case over whether the Commerce Department properly refused to apply the finished goods exclusion to certain solar panel mounts, plaintiff-appellants China Custom Manufacturing and Greentec Engineering said in a Jan. 3 notice of supplemental authority. The CIT decisions, Columbia Aluminum Products v. U.S. and Worldwide Door Components v. U.S., excluded door threshold assemblies with aluminum extrusions from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China as finished merchandise. The appellants said the decisions addressed arguments made in the present appeal (China Custom Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1345).
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The Commerce Department properly found it had enough industry support to kick off the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products (QSP) from India, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a Jan. 5 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade's ruling, Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Sharon Prost ruled that Commerce permissibly found the term "producer" did not include QSP fabricators and backed its finding that fabricators are not producers with substantial evidence via its six-factor production-related activities test.
The Commerce Department properly tapped India as the primary surrogate country in an antidumping duty review on frozen fish filets from Vietnam, the U.S. argued in a Jan. 3 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to arguments from Catfish Farmers of America vying for Indonesia to be the primary surrogate country, the government said that these claims do not undermine the choice of India and at most just seek to include Indonesia in the list of countries under consideration for the primary surrogate country (Catfish Farmers of America, et al. v. United States, CIT # 20-00105).
Long-time trade lawyer Spencer Griffith retired on Dec. 31 from Akin Gump after working at the firm since 1990, according to the firm. Griffith most recently worked as a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based International Trade Section, though he formerly served as the managing partner of Akin Gump's Beijing office. His practice centered on antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings, World Trade Organization cases and international arbitration proceedings derived from trade disputes. He will now work as partner emeritus.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Jan. 3-4 on AD/CVD proceedings: