The Commerce Department filed its remand results in the Court of International Trade on July 12 in a case over the 2016-17 administrative review of the antdiumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea. The results mirror the redeterminations made in another case filed by the same company, SeAH Steel Co., in which Commerce dropped its finding of a particular market situation (see 2107010048). After the court said that there was not enough evidence to support the agency's finding that the Korean steel market was heavily subsidized and there was a global glut of key inputs for the oil tubes from China, Commerce no longer applied the PMS adjustment, but noted its disagreement with the court over how to weigh the evidence (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).
In a pair of decisions, the Court of International Trade upheld two remand results that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty orders on steel nails from China and Vietnam. In one, CIT sustained the Commerce Department's third remand results that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from China, in a July 12 opinion. The decision applied recent precedent from a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether masonry anchors imported by OMG are subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel nails from Vietnam (see 2008280039). In another July 12 opinion, the court sustained Commerce remand results finding that Fastenal Company Purchasing's zinc and nylon anchors "do not fall within the scope of Commerce’s antidumping order on certain steel nails from China."
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in the fourth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from Korea, in a July 9 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett upheld the results after Commerce dropped its adverse inference against Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Hyosung Corporation when calculating their antidumping duty rate. The result left both respondents in the review with a zero percent duty rate.
A group of surety associations should not be able to argue against when the six-year limitations period begins for a customs bond due to their role in "abetting the new shipper bond disaster," a group of domestic agricultural goods producers said in a July 8 amicus brief in the Court of International Trade. The brief was filed to oppose the surety associations' motion to intervene in the lawsuit (United States v. American Home Assurance Company, CIT #20-00175).
The Commerce Department on July 2 finalized a scope ruling that self-drilling anchor bolt systems (SDABS) imported by Midwest Diversified Technologies are not subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on forged steel fittings from China (A-570-067/C-570-068). Just as it had in a preliminary scope ruling issued in May (see 2105200027), the agency found the fittings, used to improve the structural integrity of soil or rock to provide a stable foundation for construction, are not “forged” for the purposes of the order because they are not intended to hold high pressure and lack any pressure rating at all. Petitioners in the case raised the possibility that companies could circumvent AD duties by omitting a pressure rating from their pipe fittings (see 2106090057). In response, Commerce clarified “that the absence of a pressure rating or the lack of a pressure rating in this instance was only one characteristic among many that, taken together, led to our conclusion that MDT’s SDABS couplers are outside the scope of the Orders.”
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 12 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results of an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes from India, in a July 9 confidential opinion. Judge Claire Kelly subsequently issued a letter, stating her intention to have the public version of the opinion published “on or shortly after” July 19. Parties to the case are to review the confidential opinion and identify any confidential information to be bracketed for redaction in the public version. The case, according to the Jan. 30, 2020, complaint, concerned Commerce's use of a particular market situation to increase the cost of hot-rolled coil, the primary input, while computing the cost of the foreign like product in the below-cost analysis of home market sales for the Indian pipes and tubes (Garg Tube Export LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00026).
The Court of International Trade issued a pair of decisions on July 12 applying precedent from a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision which found that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty orders on steel nails from Vietnam. One of the decisions found masonry anchors from Midwest Fastener Corp. aren't subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel nails from Vietnam. The other, brought by Fastenal Company Purchasing, said that the company's zinc and nylon anchors "do not fall within the scope of Commerce’s antidumping order on certain steel nails from China." The Federal Circuit opinion, titled OMG, Inc. v. U.S., rejected Commerce's logic that the drive pin component of the anchors is basically a nail.
The Commerce Department was permitted to apply "facts otherwise available" in an antidumping duty investigation where it was unable to verify certain information due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Justice said in a July 2 brief to the Court of International Trade. Responding to plaintiffs, led by Bonney Forge Corp., DOJ said that the pandemic and travel restrictions prohibited Commerce from conducting on-site verifications during an investigation on forged steel fittings from India (Bonney Forge Corporation et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03837).