The Court of International Trade sustained the final results of an antidumping review on steel nails from Taiwan in a Sept. 14 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett also denied respondent Romp Coil Nails Industries' motion for a preliminary injunction pending the results of a related appeal in a different case. Barnett said that the Commerce Department's decision to use home market sales as the basis for normal value is in line with the law, and sustained Commerce's use of mandatory respondent Unicatch Industrial Co.'s above-cost sales to compute the constructed value profit.
The following new requests for antidumping and countervailing duty scope rulings were recently filed with the Commerce Department:
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 14 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Commerce Department will consider allegations of currency undervaluation as a subsidy program in an ongoing countervailing duty administrative review on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China (C-570-980), the agency said in a memo filed Sept. 10. The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing submitted the allegation in July, arguing China “undervalues its currency through intervention in the Chinese renminbi (RMB) – U.S. dollar (USD) exchange rate and thus subsidizes companies in China that receive more RMB in exchange for USD earned on their export than they otherwise would, absent the [government of China (GOC)’s] involvement.”
The Department of Justice in a Sept. 13 filing sought Court of International Trade approval of the Commerce Department's remand results stemming from the 2016-17 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea (see 2106220064), which dropped a cost-based particular market situation adjustment from the sales-below-cost test. However, DOJ did note that Commerce filed its remand results under respectful protest, continuing to find a particular market situation exists in South Korea. Following elimination of the PMS adjustment, Husteel, one of the plaintiffs in the case, received a 6.44% dumping rate, down from 10.91%, while Hyundai, the other plaintiff, received a 4.82% rate, down from 8.14%. Hyundai agreed with the remand results as well in an Aug. 25 filing (see 2108260026), citing that no parties submitted comments opposing the remand results (Husteel Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #19-00107).
Chinese exporter Yinfeng ripped the Commerce Department's decision to apply adverse facts available relating to the agency's inability to verify non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, in a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's use of AFA for the EBCP has been shot down repeatedly at CIT, yet the practice continues, Yinfeng said (Fujian Yinfeng Imp & Exp Trading Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-0088).
The Court of International Trade issued two similar opinions remanding the Commerce Department's decision for a second time to include Worldwide Door Components' and Columbia Aluminum Products' "door thresholds" within the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Finding that Commerce's remand in both cases relies on facts or inferences contradicted by other evidence and unsupported by any specific evidence, Judge Timothy Stanceu told the agency to go back to the drawing board on its scope rulings. Commerce must determine whether the finished merchandise exclusion applies to Worldwide and Columbia's door thresholds, the court said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit filed its mandates on Sept. 9 in two nearly identical Court of International Trade cases, following a decision from the appellate court two months earlier. In the case, the Federal Circuit upheld CIT's denial of CSC Sugar's challenge to a 2020 amendment to an antidumping suspension agreement on sugar from Mexico, in a July 19 ruling (see 2107190038) (CSC Sugar LLC v. United States, CIT #16-00016 and #20-00017).
Kumho Tire (Vietnam) Co. filed a complaint with the Court of International Trade challenging the Commerce Department's finding that a countervailable subsidy existed in the form of Vietnam's currency manipulation practices (Kumho Tire (Vietnam) Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00397). KTV was a respondent in the CVD investigation of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from Vietnam. In Commerce's final determination, KTV got hit with a 7.89% subsidy rate. In the complaint, KTV challenged three parts of this final determination, which include the finding that KTV got a countervailable benefit through its land-use rights, "even though Plaintiff’s acquisition of such rights pre-dated Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization," through Vietnam's currency practices and through Vietnam's import-duty exemptions program for imported inputs used in exported products