The Court of International Trade issued a confidential opinion on Oct. 29 in a case over an antidumping duty evasion finding from CBP, sustaining in part and remanding in part Customs' final decision. In the Enforce and Protect Act investigation, Diamond Tools Technology was found to have evaded the AD order on diamond sawblades from China. The company then challenged this decision at CIT, arguing against CBP's retroactive application of the Commerce Department's anticurmvention determination to include diamond sawblades from Thailand in the AD order on the sawblades from China, among other things. Diamond Tools also alleged due process violations against the EAPA process (Diamond Tools Technology LLC v. United States, CIT #20-00060).
The Commerce Department's recent decision in a separate investigation that it can actually verify non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program appeared in litigation over a separate countervailing duty review via two sets of Oct. 29 comments on remand results filed at the Court of International Trade. The lead plaintiff in the case, Guizhou Tyre Co., attacked Commerce's decision to continue applying adverse facts available relating to the EBCP, given this reversal. The consolidated plaintiffs in the case, led by the China Manufacturers Alliance, in their own comments, argued that Commerce "has expended enormous resources and time in this action defending a position that it has itself discredited" (Guizhou Tyre Co. Ltd. v. United States, CIT #19-00032).
The Court of International Trade sustained CBP's finding that Royal Brush Manufacturing Inc. evaded antidumping duties on cased pencils from China through the Philippines in an Oct. 29 order. Chief Judge Mark Barnett found that CBP complied with the law and the court's remand instructions by providing sufficient public summaries of the confidential information in the evasion investigation. Royal Brush unsuccessfully claimed that the public summaries were not adequate and that this violated its due process rights. Barnett rejecting Royal Brush's challenges to CBP's decision to reject its verification report and CBP's alternative reliance on adverse inferences.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 29 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Surety insurance provider Aegis Security Agency opposed on Oct. 27 the Department of Justice's bid for further discovery in a case over CBP’s attempt to collect on a bond issued by Aegis eight years after liquidation. Aegis argues that DOJ seeks to expand discovery without meeting the required standard for specificity or regard for the limitations on the scope of discovery in its request (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Company, CIT #20-03628).
The Commerce Department did not reasonably find that Chinese exporter Zhejiang Machinery Import & Export Corp. failed to rebut the presumption of de facto government control, barring the company from receiving a separate antidumping rate, the exporter argued to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its Oct. 26 opening brief. Contesting the Court of International Trade's June ruling upholding Commerce's position that ZMC did not rebut this presumption, ZMC argued that Commerce was unwilling to address arguments presented by it that explained that it wasn't possible for the Chinese government to control ZMC through the labor union that owns most of its shares. This established an "irrebuttable presumption that cannot be rebutted by any factual or legal arguments," contrary to law, the brief said.
The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body agreed at its Oct. 26 meeting to set up a dispute panel to look into China's antidumping and countervailing duties on Australian wine, the WTO said. China blocked Australia's panel request at the Sept. 27 DSB meeting. China voiced its regret that Australia went back for a second panel request while also saying that it will vigorously defend its legitimate measures in the panel proceedings, the WTO said. China remains confident that its measures are consistent with WTO rules. Canada, Japan, Brazil, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Turkey, Taiwan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, India, Singapore, Russia, the European Union and Vietnam reserved their third-party rights to participate in the proceedings, the WTO said.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 28 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Commerce Department should continue to apply retroactive suspension of liquidation to all non-individually examined respondents in its antidumping duty investigation on pentafluoroethane (R-125) from China, even though the agency found a mandatory respondent’s selling behavior did not warrant critical circumstances because of a seasonal sales pattern, Honeywell International, petitioner in the case, said in a brief filed Oct. 26.
The Commerce Department's failure to calculate a dumping margin for antidumping review participant Chandan Steel Ltd. and instead base the rate on adverse facts available runs contrary to the law, Chandan argued in an Oct. 23 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The exporter is challenging the final results of the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel flanges from India, covering 2018-19 entries. Chandan said it has standing as a "party to the underlying proceeding," and that the final results should be remanded so Commerce can give Chandan a rate based on its own information (Chandan Steel Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00540).