The Commerce Department's remand results following an opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over an antidumping duty administrative review should be remanded yet again, mandatory respondent Bosun Tools Co. said in comments at the Court of International Trade. Commerce should have applied neutral facts available instead of adverse facts available when weighing Bosun's country of origin information using a first-in-first-out (FIFO) methodology, Bosun said. Even if this use of AFA is sustained, it should be limited to missing information and not applied to the U.S. sales prices for reported-FIFO sales, as Commerce did, Bosun suggested (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers' Coalition v. United States, CIT #17-00167).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in a countervailing duty administrative review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey in an Aug. 18 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled against plaintiff Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi's motion for judgment, holding that Commerce permissibly rejected United Nations Comtrade and Eurostat data on natural gas imports from Russia in calculating a "tier-two benchmark" in its sales-below-cost analysis of Habas' natural gas prices. Katzmann also held that Commerce reasonably refused to use the Eurostat natural gas import data from Norway, Alberia, Libya and Ukraine in its "tier-three benchmark" calculations, while properly relying on IEA data for the tier-three calculations.
The Court of International Trade vacated a Commerce Department regulation establishing expedited reviews for countervailing duty investigations in an Aug. 18 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett, after issuing three other opinions in the case, upheld Commerce's finding that it couldn't find any alternative statutory basis on which to find that the regulation can exist. Barnett also nixed the expedited CVD reviews provided to some Canadian companies relating to the CVD order on certain softwood lumber from Canada. In doing so, Barnett ruled that companies deemed excluded from the CVD order due to the expedited reviews shall prospectively be reinstated as subject to it. Commerce shall also impose a cash deposit requirement based on the all-others rate from the investigation or the company-specific rate determined in the most recently completed administrative review in which the company was reviewed, Barnett said.
The Court of International Trade sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping investigation into carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany in two opinions. Judge Leo Gordon again remanded Commerce's application of the major input rule, treatment of certain general and administrative expenses and the application of adverse facts available. The judge did, however, sustain Commerce's differential pricing analysis and adjustment of interest expense to include a portion of respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's parent holding company's interest expense.
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recently finished its review of a Commerce Department final rule to overhaul antidumping and countervailing duty regulations, it said in a notice. One change proposed by Commerce last year would allow it to retroactively suspend liquidation and require AD/CVD cash deposits as a result of scope rulings (see 2008120037). In comments on the proposal, importers challenged changes to liquidation timelines in scope inquiries, as well as tighter deadlines that they said make it harder to defend from AD/CVD cases see 2009230042).
Target's attempt to fight off the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss a customs case at the Court of International Trade falls flat, DOJ argued in an Aug. 13 reply brief. Following practices codified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, CIT properly ordered the reliquidation of improperly liquidated ironing tables from China, DOJ said, backing the court's authority to do so (Target Corp. v. U.S., CIT #21-00162).
The Commerce Department does not need to "poll the industry" to find out if over half of the domestic industry supports an antidumping or countervailing duty petition, Judge Leo Gordon of the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 16 letter. Responding to consolidated plaintiff M S International's request for a remand directing Commerce to poll the industry or "collect additional information establishing whether there was industry support" for the contested AD/CVD petition, Gordon said this request stemmed from a misunderstanding of the law (Pokarna Engineered Stone Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-00127).
Antidumping petitioner U.S. Steel Corporation and the two mandatory respondents in the contested antidumping duty review, SeAH Steel Co. and NEXTEEL Co., submitted their comments on the Commerce Department's remand results at the Court of International Trade. U.S. Steel spoke out against Commerce's flip on its finding of a particular market situation for South Korean steel while the respondents argued against the agency's reallocation of suspended product line and inventory valuation losses to general and administrative expenses and Commerce's decision to deduct a portion of SeAH's G&A expenses of a U.S. affiliate for further manufacturing costs (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 16 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: