The Commerce Department properly dropped its reliance on an Enforce and Protect Act case to reject third-country sales in an antidumping duty review, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Dec. 6 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann upheld Commerce's remand results, which used respondent Z.A. Sea Food's (ZASF's) Vietnamese sales to calculate normal value in an AD review on Indian products. The domestic shrimp industry had argued Commerce should use constructed value because there is no evidence the shrimp sold in Vietnam was consumed by the Vietnamese customers. Katzmann waived the domestic industry's claims "due to the lack of adequate argument."
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 8 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2016 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce properly dropped its imposition of CV duties on plaintiff Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. for China's Export Buyer's Credit Program and that the agency fixed errors found by the court in the case's last opinion related to Commerce's analysis of the provision of synthetic yarn and caustic soda below cost. On remand, the agency further explained that the provision of these two items for less than adequate remuneration met the specificity requirement of the law.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 7 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Aluminum pair ramps imported by Central Purchasing, LLC (dba Harbor Freight Tools), are not covered by the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China (A-570-967/C-570-968), the Commerce Department said in a scope ruling dated Oct. 31. The ruling followed a February 2021 request from Harbor Freight to determine whether three models of aluminum pair ramps were covered by the orders.
The Commerce Department's remand redetermination concerning an antidumping duty review on oil country tubular goods from South Korea still suffers from "legal and factual flaws" despite the correct conclusion that no particular market situation existed that distorted the costs of production, Nexteel said in its Dec. 2 comments to the Court of International Trade. Nexteel told the court that, due to what it sees as the correct conclusion, CIT should sustain the remand redetermination but should force Commerce to reconsider the PMS issue should it come up before the court in the future (Nexteel and Seah Steel v. U.S. and U.S. Steel CIT # 18-00083).
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The Court of International Trade on Dec. 6 upheld the Commerce Department's finding of no particular market situation for hot-rolled coil steel in an antidumping duty review on welded line pipe from South Korea. Judge Claire Kelly also upheld Commerce's decision to recalculate respondent Nexteel's costs without making a non-prime product adjustment and revise the non-examined companies' rate. However, the judge again remanded the agency's further explanation of its classification of Nexteel's suspended production line costs.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 6 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department’s recently announced preliminary findings of circumvention for Southeast Asian solar imports (see 2212020064) were “in line if not slightly positive vs. consensus” with expectations, BofA Global Research said in a report released Dec. 2. Most companies are eligible for antidumping and countervailing duty rates “well below” the high China-wide rate for solar cells, and companies that were found not to be circumventing AD/CVD account for substantial capacity, BofA said. “Hanwha and Jinko retain 2.3 / 7.1GW of module capacity in Malaysia, Boviet retains 1.5GW in Vietnam, and New East holds 900MW capacity in Cambodia. Critically, this in theory provides a very strong bridge on module supply through to 2024 noting Jinko and JA have further build out of wafer in SE Asia which would also be outside the scope. Inclusive of 10GW of capacity from [First Solar], we see several viable options for US supply constraints to ease,” the report said.
The Commerce Department properly granted antidumping duty respondents a constructed export price offset in an AD review, the U.S. argued in a Dec. 5 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. While AD petitioner Wheatland Tube "is correct" in arguing that the party seeking the offset has the burden of establishing the amount and nature of a particular adjustment, Commerce in this case reasonably found that "due to prior practice in this proceeding of accepting comparable information and analyses as sufficient to grant a CEP offset that Commerce should continue to grant a CEP offset in this review" (Wheatland Tube v. United States, CIT #22-00160).