The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. 23 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department erred in using the Cohen's d test to identify potential masked dumping in an antidumping investigation, Ashley Furniture argued in a Nov. 19 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Tapping a recent Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion that questioned the validity of the standardized mean difference test, Ashley Furniture argued that Commerce's use of the test in the AD investigation into welded line pipe from South Korea rests on the same faulty assumptions that the Federal Circuit already rejected (Ashley Furniture Industries, LLC, et al. v. United States, CIT #32-00283).
Antidumping duty respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes and Pipes Ind. filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade over the Commerce Department's denial of part of its responses in an AD administrative review. The company challenges Commerce's rejection of its questionnaire responses for being untimely filed for being nearly two hours late, despite COVID-19-related technical difficulties. The decision was especially egregious since Commerce granted itself lengthy extensions to meet deadlines in the review, the company said (Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipes Ind. LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00587).
Goods coming from a non-market economy may be denied first sale valuation due to the market-distorting policies of the non-market economy, the Department of Justice said in a Nov. 19 brief filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Arguing the appellate court should uphold a Court of International Trade ruling questioning the use of first sale on goods from NMEs, DOJ pushed back against plaintiff Meyer Corp.'s contention that NME policies cannot be included in "any non-market influences" -- any of which the U.S. can use to deny an importer the use of first sale. Notably, DOJ did not whole-heartedly embrace the notion that goods coming from an NME are immediately disqualified from receiving first sale valuation (Meyer Corporation, U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1932).
A World Trade Organization dispute panel found the U.S. violated WTO rules during investigations leading up to the imposition of countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain. The panel found that the U.S. erred when finding that subsidies given to Spanish raw olive growers under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy were specific to the olive growers, a finding that was inconsistent with measures in the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The Court of International Trade independently came to the same conclusion. In June, the court said that the countervailing duties could not stand since they were not specific to Spanish olive growers (see 2106170075). The panel also said the Commerce Department's regulation permitting it to deem the full amount of subsidies taken in by raw olive growers to have passed through to the downstream producers lacks any real factual basis and is inconsistent with WTO rules. The panel did not find, however, that the antidumping duties on the same goods violated the trade body's rules. "The Commission's efforts to vigorously defend the interests and rights of EU producers, in this case growers of Spanish ripe olives, are now paying off," Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU's commissioner for trade, said. "The WTO has upheld our claims about anti-subsidy duties being unjustified and in violation of WTO rules. These duties severely hit Spanish olive producers, who saw their exports to the US fall dramatically as a result. We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions.”
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. 22 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Steel exporter Al Ghurair Iron & Steel will appeal a September Court of International Trade decision that sustained the Commerce Department's finding that Al Ghurair circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on corrosion-resistant steel products from China via the United Arab Emirates. In a Nov. 19 notice of appeal, AGIS said that it will appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the case, AGIS unsuccessfully argued against Commerce's finding that AGIS's level of investment and production facilities in the UAE are minor and that the value of processing in the UAE represents only a small portion of the value of the merchandise shipped to the U.S. (see 2110050065) (Al Ghurair Iron & Steel LLC v. United States, CIT #20-00142).
The Government of Argentina, along with LDC Argentina, will appeal a September Court of International Trade decision that found that the Commerce Department had sufficient evidence in its changed circumstances review to support its finding that the situation had not changed regarding countervailable subsidies for Argentina's biodiesel industry. In two notices of appeal, both plaintiffs said they will now take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the case, the court also upheld Commerce's decision to originally find changed circumstances but later switch back to a finding of no changed circumstances, leading to a higher CVD rate (see 2109210046) (Government of Argentina v. United States, CIT Consol. # 20-00119).
That an antidumping review respondent lied in its advertisements about what its goods were made of does not warrant the application of adverse facts available, the Court of International Trade said in a Nov. 18 decision. Judge Miller Baker said that while the respondent's advertising in the U.S. is a "complete fraud from bark to core," the Commerce Department must derive the company's dumping rate from its actual costs. The judge also held that Commerce does not have the jurisdiction to "police false advertising violations" under its antidumping laws.