The Commerce Department's use of a simple average to calculate a pooled standard deviation as part of the differential pricing analysis in an antidumping duty case was reasonable and permitted under the statute, the U.S. and Mid Continent Steel & Wire said in reply briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Responding to the opening brief filed by the appellants, led by PT Enterprise, both the government and Mid Continent argued that the "academic literature" backed the use of simple averages and that PT's proposed method of weighing the averages cut against the science (Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1747).
Court of International Trade Judge Claire Kelly remanded the Commerce Department's use of surrogate data from Thailand in two antidumping administrative reviews into crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China in two nearly identical July 28 rulings. The judge sought to bring the cases in line with a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that found that Commerce's methodology was unreasonable. Commerce improperly continued to use Thai import data as a surrogate for data on a key input of the solar cells, Kelly said.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 27 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated July 23 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department continued to find that Vandewater International's steel branch outlets fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China in July 23 remand results. Following an October 2020 Court of International Trade opinion finding that Commerce had failed to sufficiently explain its ruling (see 2010190031), the agency took another look at the scope ruling and provided a more thorough explanation of its holding. For instance, Commerce said that the physical characteristics of the steel branch outlets are similar to the characteristics of the carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings (Vandewater International, Inc. v. United States, CIT #18-00199).
The Commerce Department wants another look at an antidumping review after CBP brought to light new evidence that questioned the accuracy of the mandatory respondent's U.S. sales data and reported affiliates, in a July 20 motion for a voluntarily remand. In the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, Commerce picked Shandong New Continent as the mandatory respondent and found a zero percent dumping margin for the exporter (Pirelli Tyre Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00115). After the review, CBP alerted Commerce as to certain inaccuracies in SNC's reported sales prices on imports of the tires in question. "When potentially new and material evidence comes to light, it is appropriate for this Court to consider a remand to the agency," the motion said. The case was brought by Pirelli Tyre Co., which challenged the country-wide dumping rate it was given in the administrative review, according to its May 2020 complaint.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 26 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department was wrong to "jettison" its prior regulations in not adjusting for the indirect reimbursement for antidumping duties paid in an administrative review on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia, the U.S. Steel Corporation said in a July 13 reply brief. Responding to arguments made by Commerce and defendant-intervenor BlueScope Steel, U.S. Steel argued that the scope of Commerce's reimbursement regulation includes both direct and indirect reimbursement, which runs counter to Commerce's decision to not adjust for indirect reimbursement.