The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices March 1 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Graphite rods that Boart Longyear says it imports for machining into specialty components for use as molds are covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on small diameter graphite electrodes from China (A-570-929), the Commerce Department said in a scope ruling issued in early February.
A group of U.S. welded pipe manufacturers is appealing a Court of International Trade ruling that the Commerce Department can't make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test (see 2112280030). American Cast Iron Pipe, Berg Steel Pipe, Berg Spiral Pipe, Dura-Bond Industries and Stupp along with Greens Bayou Pipe Mill, JSW Steel (USA), Skyline Steel, Trinity Products and Welspun Tubular joined the Feb. 25 notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The CIT decision was one in a long line of court decisions finding that the statute doesn't permit a PMS adjustment in this way (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #19-00056). This position was recently upheld by the Federal Circuit in Hyundai Steel v. United States and is currently being petitioned for a full court rehearing by the AD petitioner of the relevant order Welspun.
Section 232 national security duties are not "ordinary customs duties" and shouldn't be deducted from an antidumping duty respondent's export price and constructed export price, exporter Borusan Mannesmann said in a Feb. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Instead, Section 232 duties should be found to be "special duties" because they were imposed by a specific congressional delegation of authority to the president, the brief said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #22-00057).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted American steel giant U.S. Steel's request to appear as an amicus in a key case on whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test in antidumping proceedings (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748). In the case, brought by Hyundai Steel Company, the Federal Circuit found that no such adjustment was permitted by the statute, cementing a long string of Court of International Trade rulings saying the same thing (see 2112100039). The petitioner of the relevant AD order, Welspun, filed for a full court rehearing, prompting U.S. Steel's amicus bid (see 2202250034).
The government's right to collect on a bond against a surety doesn't accrue until the surety breaches the bond, the Department of Justice said in a Feb. 28 motion for judgment in a case seeking to collect on a bond that covers imports entered during 2002-2006. Since the terms of the bond say that the surety must pay "as demanded by CBP," the statute of limitations on which to file suit to collect payment runs from when CBP demands payment, the brief said (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT #20-03628).
The Commerce Department didn't "consider the plain language of the scope" when it found a type of aluminum sheet imported from Turkey by AA Metals to be covered by the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, the importer said in a Feb. 22 complaint challenging a scope ruling issued by Commerce in response to a CBP covered merchandise referral in an AD/CVD evasion investigation (AA Metals v. United States, CIT #22-00051).
An investigation by CBP into alleged evasion of countervailing duties and antidumping duties on wooden cabinets from China has found substantial evidence of evasion by two importers. In a final EAPA determination, CBP found that importers, Splendid Trading and Superior Granite and Marble, engaged in a scheme to transship Chinese wooden cabinets through Malaysia, announcing that it will continue to suspend liquidation and require cash deposits on entries from the two importers.
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to hit affiliated antidumping respondents Ghigi 1870 and Pasta Zara with an adverse inference over their U.S. payment dates in Feb. 28 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. However, the agency dropped the adverse inference on the U.S. sales for which Commerce verified the correct date. The result, if sustained, is a weighted-average dumping margin of 91.74% for Ghigi/Zara (Ghigi 1870 S.P.A. v. United States, CIT #20-00023).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 28 on AD/CVD proceedings: