Challenges to several Commerce Department actions around the antidumping duty investigation on tomatoes from Mexico, and subsequent suspension agreements, have already been ruled on at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and should be denied, the government argued in a Sept. 20 motion to dismiss aspects of several complaints from Bioparques, a Mexican agriculture company. The Florida Tomato Exchange, a defendant-intervenor, made a supplementary motion to dismiss on Sept. 21 (Bioparques et al v. U.S., CIT # 19-00204).
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The Commerce Department did not properly explain why it was appropriate to inflate a Mexican labor wage rate using Brazilian data in an antidumping duty investigation, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 13 opinion, made public Sept. 21. Commerce requested a voluntary remand in the case to further explain its decision, since it admitted to the court that it did not explain this position. Judge M. Miller Baker also sent the case back so the agency can identify the evidence in the record that supports granting Guangzhou Ulix Industrial & Trading Co. a separate rate.
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 22 opinion granted exporter Dong-A-Steel's right to intervene as a plaintiff-intervenor in an antidumping challenge brought by Histeel. Both Dong-A and Histeel participated in the administrative review of the AD duty order on heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from South Korea as mandatory respondents. The U.S. opposed Dong-A's proposed intervention on the grounds that it has not shown injury in fact, causation and redressability, since it will not suffer any harm if Histeel's margin is upheld. Judge Gary Katzmann said that Dong-A had "piggyback" standing because it and Histeel seek the same relief, and has intervention "as of right" because it is "an interested party who was a party to the proceeding."
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 22 opinion denied plaintiff Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret's motion to stay its countervailing duty review challenge pending resolution of a case over the previous review of the same CVD order. Kaptan's case concerns the 2019 administrative review of the CVD order on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey. Judge Gary Katzmann said the stay would not promote judicial economy because the pending cases are before CIT and not the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Additionally, he said Kaptan has not put forth any "pressing need" for a stay.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 21 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 20 order consolidated four cases contesting the Commerce Department's final results in the ninth administrative review of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. The four cases were brought by lead plaintiffs Zhejiang Dadongwu Greenhome Wood, Evolutions Flooring, Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. and Fine Furniture (Shanghai). The cases were consolidated under the lead action brought by Baroque Timber.
CBP did not rely on "disallowed hearsay" when finding that Skyview Cabinet evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on wooden cabinets and vanities and components thereof from China, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 19 reply brief. Responding to Skyview's arguments that CBP improperly relied on an affidavit and business confidential statements made by a corporate investigator, the government said that the importer has put forth no evidence questioning the truthfulness and credibility of the evidence and that the affidavits are not irrelevant to the evasion finding. CBP also did not solely rely on the information in the affidavit alone, the brief said (Skyview Cabinet USA v. United States, CIT #22-00080).
Commerce Must Satisfy Criteria Before Rejecting Successor-in-Interest CCR, Lumber Exporter Tells CIT
The U.S. was wrong to argue that the Commerce Department does not need to satisfy any criteria when refusing to start a successor-in-interest changed circumstances review, plaintiff GreenFirst Forest Products argued in a Sept. 19 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The government ignored that both Commerce and the trade court have recognized the agency's practice of looking at whether the agency individually calculated the former company's subsidy rate to deny the successor-in-interest CCR, the plaintiff said (GreenFirst Forest v. U.S., CIT #22-00097).
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 20 order denied a motion from John Liu and GL Paper Distribution, defendants in a Section 592 penalty case, to strike a portion of the complaint. Liu moved to toss elements of the complaint he deemed to not be relevant to the imports at issue. Judge Jane Restani ruled that striking these parts of the complaint would be "premature," since the matter of relevancy is a "question of evidence" and not meant to be subject to a motion to strike.