The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 24 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results in a case on the 2015-16 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea. In the remand results, Commerce dropped its finding that a particular market situation distorted the price of a key input of the steel pipe. Previously in the case, the agency dropped the PMS adjustment to one of the AD review respondents but not the other. The elimination of the adjustment for the other in the fourth remand results resulted in a decrease in non-selected respondent SeAH Steel Corp.'s dumping rate from 19.28% to 9.77%.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 23 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Aug. 19 issued its mandate in an antidumping duty case brought by Prime Time Commerce. In June, the appellate court ruled that Prime Time failed to exhaust its administrative remedies for its argument that the Commerce Department should look to confidential information to provide "gap-filling" data needed to calculate a rate separate from the China-wide antidumping margin (see 2206280038). The Federal Circuit further ruled that while CIT and Commerce erred in not accepting Prime Time's submissions since it is an "interested party," the error was a harmless one. The case concerned the administrative review of the AD order on cased pencils from China (Prime Time Commerce v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1783).
The Commerce Department in Aug. 22 comments at the Court of International Trade urged acceptance of its remand results in which it verified that a countervailing duty respondent's U.S. customers did not use China's Export Buyer's Credit Program. Commerce said that since it complied with the court's order to verify the U.S. customers' claims that they did not use the EBCP and that no parties oppose the remand, the court should uphold the decision that dropped the CVD rate from 25.90% to 15.36% (Both-Well (Taizhou) Steel Fittings Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00166).
The Commerce Department erred when using adverse facts available over the reporting of various Malaysian inland freight data in antidumping duty respondent Euro SME's home market and U.S. sales databases, the respondent argued in an Aug. 19 brief at the Court of International Trade. Euro SME further railed against Commerce's use of AFA over the reporting of certain sales data kept in the normal course of business (Euro SME v. United States, CIT #22-00108).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 22 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 18 granted the government’s request for a voluntary remand in an importer’s challenge to a CBP Enforce and Protect Act evasion finding on tri-bar floors imported in farrowing crates. DOJ had requested the remand a day earlier, seeking to add to the record of the EAPA proceeding a recent Commerce Department scope ruling that also found the tri-bar floors subject to the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel grating from China (Ikadan System USA v. United States, CIT # 21-00592).
The Court of International Trade should uphold a "reasonable" final determination by the Commerce Department that oil country tubular goods made in Brunei and the Philippines from Chinese hot-rolled steel coils are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on OCTG from China, intervenors Welded Tube USA, Wheatland Tube Company, and Vallourec Star said in an Aug. 19 brief (HLDS (B) Steel v. United States, CIT #21-00638).
The Commerce Department should accept an exporter's evidence of entries to establish a separate rate in an antidumping duty case, or else conclude that it had no shipments and not review the company, the exporter, Ningbo Qixin, argued in an Aug. 18 reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Canadian Solar International, et al. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 20-2162).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 19 on AD/CVD proceedings: