The Court of International Trade remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on utility scale wind towers from Vietnam, in a March 24 opinion made public April 4. Judge Timothy Reif said that on remand Commerce must address evidence presented by CVD petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition of respondent CS Wind Vietnam's alleged manipulation of the denominator used in the benefit calculation and evidence relating to the country of origin of CS Wind Vietnam's steel plate.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices April 4 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Kirrin Hough is no longer employed by the Commerce Department, the U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a notice withdrawing the attorney as co-counsel for the U.S. in an antidumping duty case. Since Hough's employment period with Commerce has ended, the attorney will no longer participate as counsel in the litigation, and Joshua Kurland will remain on as principal counsel, the notice said. The case concerns the AD investigation on biodiesel from Argentina in which exporter LDC Argentina challenged Commerce's move to redefine price adjustments to "disaggregate" the value actually agreed to by the buyer and the seller (see 2112130048) (Vicentin S.A.I.C. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1988).
An importer is asking the Court of International Trade to direct CBP to reliquidate entries of Chinese citric acid anhydrous that Thatcher says CBP improperly liquidated as subject to antidumping and countervailing duties. In its March 31 complaint, Thatcher said that CBP extended liquidation of the entries with neither a "statutory basis" nor the "legal authority" to do so and without instruction from the Commerce Department (Thatcher Company, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00067).
The Commerce Department opened the record on remand to accept Turkish exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi's sections B and C questionnaire responses after the Court of International Trade ruled it was an abuse of discretion to reject the minutes-late submissions. In remand results filed April 1, Commerce dropped the dumping rate for Celik from 53.65% to 17.88%, centering the case on other issues in the antidumping duty investigation (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi A.S. v. U.S., CIT #21-00045).
The Court of International Trade should reject the U.S.'s motion to dismiss a case challenging the Commerce Department's denial of a request to issue a scope ruling since the motion is "factually and legally inaccurate," plaintiffs led by Zhejiang Yuhua Timber Co. said in an April 1 brief. The plaintiffs said that the U.S.'s position that jurisdiction would be established at the end of a changed circumstances review requested by the plaintiffs is "plainly without any factual basis and purely speculative" (Zhejiang Yuhua Timber Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00502).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices April 1 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on March 30 in an antidumping duty case affirming that the Commerce Department cannot make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test. The petitioner, Welspun Tubular, unsuccessfully requested a stay of the mandate so that it could appeal the matter to the Supreme Court (see 2203240063). The appellate court said that a stay of the mandate was not needed to preserve this right. In the case's opinion, the Federal Circuit said that Commerce can only make a PMS adjustment when calculating constructed value, affirming a long line of Court of International Trade decisions (see 2203220082) (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748).
There is no error in the Commerce Department's liquidation instructions, so importer MS Solar's lawsuit under Section 1581(i), the Court of International Trade's "residual" jurisdiction, should be dismissed, the U.S. said in a March 30 reply brief backing its motion to dismiss. Instead, the case should have been filed under Section 1581(c) to contest the antidumping duty review itself, the brief said (MS Solar Investments v. United States, CIT #21-00303).
The Commerce Department erred when it switched its zero percent dumping margin for Greek exporter Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry (CPW) to a 41.04% dumping rate despite the fact that the data was "entirely unchanged," the exporter told the Court of International Trade in a March 31 complaint. CPW also contested Commerce's use of adverse facts available despite the fact that it fully cooperated in the antidumping duty review and the agency's failure to conduct a verification, virtual or otherwise (Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry v. United States, CIT #22-00063).