The Commerce Department disregarded the potential for countervailing duty respondent CS Wind Vietnam to manipulate its CVD margin through its relationship with its Korean parent company, plaintiff Wind Tower Trade Coalition (WTTC) said in Sept. 7 comments on Commerce's remand results. Submitting its arguments to the Court of International Trade, WTTC said Commerce's use of CS Wind Korea's reported sales value in the sales denominator was inconsistent with the agency's regulations and past practice (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. U.S., CIT #20-03692).
The Commerce Department in a pair of remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade stuck by its position to exclude importers Worldwide Door Components' and Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. After the trade court remanded the case for a second time, finding that the previous remand results were not submitted in a form the trade court could sustain, Commerce offered a further explanation for its decision to find that the thresholds fit under the finished merchandise exclusion to the orders (Worldwide Door Components v. U.S., CIT #19-00012) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. U.S., CIT #19-00013).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 9 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 7 order granted the U.S.'s partial consent motion for a voluntary remand in an Enforce and Protect Act matter brought by H&E Home and Classic Metals Suppliers, later joined by Global Aluminum as a consolidated plaintiff. The case is related to CBP's finding that the plaintiffs were evading the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions by transshipping them through the Dominican Republic (H&E Home v. U.S., CIT #21-00337).
The Commerce Department properly included Vandewater International's steel branch outlets under the scope of the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China, the Court of International Trade held in a Sept. 8 opinion. Judge Leo Gordon found that while the plaintiffs, led by Vandewater, showed that information on the record could back a finding that their outlets could be excluded from the scope of the order, he could not agree that Commerce acted unreasonably in reaching the opposing conclusion using each of the (k)(2) factors.
Argentina has requested dispute consultations with Peru at the World Trade Organization over Peru's antidumping and countervailing duties on biodiesel from Argentina, the WTO announced. Argentina is contesting six measures imposed by Peru: 1) the original CVD investigation, 2) the original AD investigation, 3) the CVD changed circumstances review, 4) the AD changed circumstances review, 5) the CVD sunset review, and 6) the AD sunset review.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit changed the label on a key antidumping duty decision from "nonprecedential" to "precedential." The decision stated that the Commerce Department cannot select just one mandatory respondent in an antidumping duty review where multiple exporters have requested a review (see 2208290026). The appellate court said that Commerce's interpretation of the statute finding that it can use only one respondent runs "contrary to the statute's unambiguous language." The judges ruled the agency has not shown it to be otherwise reasonable to calculate the all-others rate based on only one respondent and said the directive to find a weighted average gives no reason that it's reasonable to use only a single rate. The decision was originally listed as "nonprecedential," but the court later reversed that (YC Rubber Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1489).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 8 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 6 order consolidated four cases contesting the International Trade Commission's decision that led to the antidumping duty order on raw honey from Vietnam. The four nearly identical cases argue that, contrary to the ITC's findings, the Vietnamese import volume hasn't jumped enough to undermine the remedial effect of the antidumping duty order, such as to require a critical circumstances determination (see 2208040065). In the proceeding, the commissioners ruled that imports subject to the affirmative critical circumstances finding are likely to seriously undercut the remedial effect of the AD order on Vietnam, so honey from Vietnam was subject to 90 more days of retroactively imposed duties. The plaintiffs, all represented by Gregory Husisian of Foley & Lardner, contested the decision at the trade court (Sweet Harvest Foods v. U.S., CIT Consol. #22-00188).