The Court of International Trade should remand the Commerce Department's failure to meet its obligation to verify the information of mandatory respondent Shakti Forge Industries in an antidumping duty investigation on forged steel fittings from India, petitioner Bonney Forge Corporation, along with the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, said in a July 22 reply brief. Commerce's use of facts otherwise available doesn't excuse the agency from its duty to verify and leads to "absurd results," Bonney Forge said (Bonney Forge Corporation et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03837).
World Trade Organization members reached a consensus July 28 on the 14 new heads of the subsidiary bodies that report to the Council for Trade in Goods. The General Council chair, Ambassador Dacio Castillo of Honduras, added that he will host consultations on how to "improve the overall process for the appointment of officers of all WTO bodies," according to an accompanying press release. The chairpersons are as follows:
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 29 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Defendant-intervenors and antidumping case petitioners, led by Catfish Farmers of America, filed comments to remand results in the Court of International Trade on July 28 in a case over an antidumping review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. Having already submitted comments on the remand (see 2107160018), the catfish farmers added final comments, arguing that Commerce's continued reliance on total adverse facts available is properly supported by findings "already affirmed by the court," and that Commerce fully addressed the issues remanded by the court despite no longer relying on them (Hung Vuong Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00055).
The Commerce Department's use of Thai surrogate data in two antidumping administrative reviews of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China was not properly supported, the Court of International Trade said in two nearly identical July 28 decisions. Judge Claire Kelly, penning the opinions, sought to bring Commerce's practice in line with a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that called unreasonable the agency's “bookend methodology” in selecting the surrogate data. Stopping short of instructing Commerce to cease its use of the Thai data, Kelly found that the agency's rationale was unsupported and remanded the surrogate value selection for further consideration or explanation.
Costa Rica requested dispute consultations with the Dominican Republic over antidumping duties on corrugated steel bars from Costa Rica, a July 27 World Trade Organization notice said. Costa Rica said the DR's antidumping measures are incompatible with obligations under the Anti-Dumping Agreement and the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 28 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department should have disregarded petitioners' claims in a countervailing duty investigation on silicon metal from Kazakhstan, said sole respondent to the investigation Tau-Ken Temir in a July 21 brief in the Court of International Trade. The petitioners' conflict of interest claim "lacked merit, not even colorable merit," to the extent that Commerce should have found the petitioners were interfering in the investigation, TKT said. The exporter seeks to have the court throw out Commerce's rejection of its questionnaire responses (Tau-Ken Temir LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00173).
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with some recent top stories. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.