There are no substantive differences between two cases challenging antidumping duty investigations into goods from India, one of which was granted a voluntary remand, so the Court of International Trade should grant a remand for the other, the plaintiffs for that case argued in a Dec. 1 brief. Both cases concern the lack of verification due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and CIT should allow Commerce to review whether it was appropriate to rely on supplemental questionnaire responses instead of on-site verification (Bonney Forge Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03837).
The Commerce Department properly gave a non-mandatory respondent a non-de minimis countervailing duty rate in a CVD administrative review despite the fact that both of the actual mandatory respondents received de minimis rates, the Court of International Trade said in a Dec. 2 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly held that the "expected method" for calculating duties for non-mandatory respondents only applies in the antidumping duty context, and not to CV duty proceedings.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Dec. 1 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 30 consolidated three court cases, all challenging the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018-2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel flanges from India. The three cases are now consolidated under the action brought by Kisaan Die Tech Private Limited and all concern whether Commerce's all-others rate calculation was in accordance with the law. In the review, the agency hit the one mandatory respondent with adverse facts available, then extended this rate to all other respondents (see 2109140030). Kisaan challenged this action, arguing that "all other" respondents never failed to cooperate with Commerce's review, precluding the agency from hitting them with AFA (Kissan Die Tech Private Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00512).
The Commerce Department's refusal to calculate a non-adverse facts available rate for all other respondents in a countervailing duty review is not in accordance with the law, steel wheel importer Rimco said in its Nov. 30 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The agency's move of averaging the AFA rates to come up with a 388.1% all-others rate in the review is not backed by substantial evidence and cuts against a past CIT ruling, Rimco said (Rimco, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00588).
The Department of Justice's insistence on defending the Commerce Department's position regarding China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in countervailing duty investigations is "mystifying" seeing as it refuses to appeal the issue after multiple defeats at the Court of International Trade, respondent Both-Well (Taizhou) Steel Fittings Co. said in a Nov. 30 brief (Both-Well (Taizhou) Steel Fittings v. U.S., CIT #21-00166).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 2 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's final results in the 2017 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on steel reinforcing bar from Turkey. Judge Claire Kelly found that it was reasonable for Commerce to assign non-mandatory respondent Colakoglu a rate from a previous administrative review where it did serve as a mandatory respondent, even though both actual mandatory respondents in the review at issue in the case received de minimis rates. Kelly also said that it did not matter that record evidence did not support the CVD rate received by Colakoglu since it is its responsible to populate the record, which it failed to do.
World Trade Organization members heard two requests for dispute panels at the Nov. 29 meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body, the WTO said. The European Union sought a panel over Russian state-owned entities' procurement practices, and Costa Rica requested a panel over the Dominican Republic's antidumping duties on corrugated steel bars from Costa Rica.
A California table olive industry trade association declared victory over a recent World Trade Organization challenge to U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain following the WTO's ruling, declaring that the trade organization gave "the outcome of which will enable the U.S. Government to continue effectively enforcing the U.S. olive trade remedy cases," it said in an emailed press release Nov. 30. Despite the WTO panel's finding that some aspects of U.S. countervailing duties violate WTO rules (see 2111190028), the Olive Growers Council of California said the WTO ruling was a win for the California olive growers, and that the antidumping and countervailing duties will help the growers stabilize and rebuild.