The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate July 22 following its opinion ruling that the Commerce Department properly found that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports didn't circumvent the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. In the June opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court of International Trade's opinion, finding that the merchandise was commercially available before Dec. 8, 2016, and was thus not later-developed merchandise that circumvented the AD/CVD orders (see 2206150032) (Shelter Forest International Acquisition Inc., et al. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2281).
The Commerce Department improperly deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from antidumping duty respondent Nippon Steel Corp.'s (NSC's) U.S. price, the exporter argued in a July 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Becoming the next company to make the claim, NSC argued that Section 232 duties are unlike the ordinary customs duties that are considered U.S. import duties and are in fact "far more similar" to antidumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguard duties, which are not deducted from U.S. price (Nippon Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00183).
The Court of International Trade should deny a motion by Saha Thai Steel Pipe for judgement and sustain The Commerce Department's 2019-2020 administrative review of an antidumping duty order on welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, the government said in a July 15 opposition motion (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00627).
The Court of International Trade should rule against the Commerce Department's move to reject questionnaire responses submitted 30 minutes late, antidumping respondent Zhejiang Zhouli Industrial argued in a July 21 complaint. Explaining the circumstances of the late submission, Zhouli said the rejection was a "drastic measure that was not warranted" and resulted in an adverse facts available rate. It urged the court to find the rejection to be an abuse of discretion (Zhejiang Zhouli v. U.S., CIT #22-00177).
Zhe "John" Liu and GL Paper Distribution owe the U.S. nearly $1 million for evading antidumping duties on steel wire hangers from China by transshipping the wire hangers through Malaysia, the U.S. argued in a July 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Alleging that Liu and GL Paper negligently avoided paying the duties, the U.S. took to the trade court to seek payment of the penalties, which equals the domestic value of the steel wire hanger entries made by GL Paper in 2017 (The United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT #22-00215).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 22 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department was not justified in using adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review on respondent Xinjiang Meihua Amino Acid Co. since the respondent was fully cooperative and there was no gap in the record, consolidated plaintiff Jianlong Biotechnology Co. argued in a July 19 brief at the Court of International Trade. Further, there is not record evidence supporting the fact that the 77.04% dumping margin Commerce assigned to the non-individually examined companies "reflects in any way the dumping rate of the cooperative separate rate respondents," Jianlong Biotechnology argued (Meihua Group International Trading (Hong Kong) v. United States, CIT Consol. #22-00069).
The Commerce Department's refusal to reopen the record after an antidumping review was complete to correct ministerial errors "was a reasonable exercise of its discretion to preserve the finality of its decision," AD petitioner GEO Specialty Chemicals argued in a July 21 brief at the Court of International Trade. GEO said that Commerce's discretion to not amend the final results is "broad," and that the error was not discovered until "well after" the five-day window after the release of the final calculations to file ministerial errors (Nagase & Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00574).
The Commerce Department in July 20 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade stuck by its methodology used to calculate profit for the constructed value of antidumping duty respondent Building Systems de Mexico (BSM). Commerce also dropped the use of adverse facts available for one unreportable sale, used the date of substantial completion of a fabricated structural steel (FSS) project as the date of sale rather than the date of the purchase order or sales order acknowledgment, and didn't exclude the operating results of the business unit in question from the calculation of the constructed export price profit rate (Building Systems de Mexico v. U.S., CIT #20-00069).
The Commerce Department's own precedent means it should have relied on the U.S. dollar price of home market sales in an antidumping duty case instead of foreign currentcy amounts to avoid large exchange rate fluctuations, plaintiff Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi argued in a July 18 reply brief. Filing its arguments at the Court of International Trade, Habas said that the "evidentiary record" shows Commerce should not have valued Habas's sales using the Turkish lira (Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi v. United States, CIT #21-00527).