The Commerce Department can’t deny a Dominican aluminum extrusions exporter’s scope ruling request on the basis that CBP has already ruled on the merchandise in an Enforce and Protect Act evasion investigation, the exporter, Kingtom Aluminum, said in a letter filed with Commerce in early August.
The Commerce Department will allow more time for comments on whether Russia should be considered a nonmarket economy country for antidumping duty purposes, it said in a notice released Aug. 25. The agency is considering ending Russia's market economy status in AD duty investigations in the context of an AD duty investigation on urea ammonium nitrate solutions from Russia (A-821-831), though any determination as to Russia's status would apply generally to all AD duty proceedings involving the country. Commerce has treated Russia as a market economy since 2002. NME companies subject to AD duty proceedings must prove independence from government control, or else be assigned to the countrywide entity with AD rates that can reach into the hundreds percent. Comments, which can be submitted by the public and are not limited to participants in the urea ammonium nitrate investigation, are now due Sept. 7.
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Industrias Negromex and Dynasol, Mexican exporters of emulsion styrene-butadiene rubber (ESBR), are challenging the Commerce Department's rejection of questionnaire responses in an antidumping duty administrative review on ESBR from Mexico, according to an Aug. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's rejection of Negromex's corrective model matching information, whether considered a corrective filing or new factual information, constitutes an unlawful rejection of factual information and a failure to calculate an accurate dumping margin, the complaint said (Industrias Negromex, S.A. de C.V., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00495).
Advanced Extrusion, Ex-Tech Plastics and Multi-Plastics Extrusions, defendant-intervenors in an antidumping case, opposed plaintiff OCTAL's motion to expand the word limit and ability to submit reply comments to the Commerce Department's remand results. The intervenors said in an Aug. 24 brief that OCTAL's comment schedule would “improperly extinguish” their opportunity to comment on the remand results, which could prejudice their rights on appeal (OCTAL, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).
The Commerce Department's rejection of questionnaire responses in antidumping and a countervailing duty cases filed 21 and 87 minutes late was unreasonable and a "miscarriage of justice," Turkish steel exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi said in two Aug. 24 reply briefs. In particular, defendant-intervenors, led by Insteel Wire Products Company, wrongly speculated about Celik Halat's counsel's awareness of the time zone at his residence in Utah, leading to three entire days for which Celik Halat had to submit the questionnaire responses. Rather, the filing deficiencies stem from an emergency medical procedure and not a time zone mishap, Celik Halat said (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00045, #21-00050).
The Commerce Department did not violate the law when it included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited in an antidumping investigation, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 25 order. Judge Leo Gordon said that there is nothing in the statute that requires Commerce to perform a bona fide sales analysis on paid U.S. sample sales during an antidumping investigation.
A group of companies requesting an anti-circumvention inquiry related to antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese solar cells can’t keep their identities secret, an importer said in comments to the Commerce Department filed Aug. 24.
The Court of International Trade remanded two Commerce Department scope rulings on an antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China in separate challenges. In one case, brought by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce misinterpreted evidence from the International Trade Commission on whether Crane's flanges are subject to the order. In the other case, brought by Star Pipe Products, Stanceu said that Commerce did not consider all the relevant evidence when finding that Star Pipe's flanges are covered by AD duties.
A federal jury found six companies guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. through a “wire-and-customs” fraud scheme in which $1.8 billion in antidumping and countervailing duties were avoided on aluminum extrusions imported to the U.S. from China, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District 0f California said Aug. 23. Disguising the extrusions as “pallets,” the goods were shipped to the U.S. and sold to fraudulently inflate a Chinese company's revenues, the Department of Justice said. Litigation over the aluminum pallets has been going on in multiple venues (see 2011090041).