Products from importer SMA Surfaces meet all four of the criteria for an exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duties on quartz surface products from China, and the Commerce Department never addressed "unrefuted evidence" which shows that one of its products satisfies the key fourth criteria for this exclusion, the importer argued in a Feb. 16 brief at the Court of International Trade (SMA Surfaces v. United States, CIT #21-00399).
The Court of International Trade upheld on Feb. 18 the Commerce Department's remand results in a case over the countervailing duty order on aluminum extrusions from China brought by plaintiffs led by Taizhou United Imp. & Exp. Co. After an initial remand, the court said that Commerce properly countervailed subsided glass. The plaintiffs argued that Commerce couldn't countervail glass inputs sold for less than adequate remuneration since the glass was tied to non-subject merchandise. Judge Leo Gordon said that the plaintiffs pointed out nothing in the record to prove this fact, thus backing Commerce's position.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 17 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found an appendix filed by plaintiff-appellant Uttam Galva Steel Limited in a countervailing duty challenge to not be in compliance with the court's rules (Uttam Galva Steels Limited v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2119). The court said that any multi-volume appendix must have a volume number in Roman numerals with the pages included in the volume at the top of the cover of each volume. Further, a confidential version of the appendix must have any relevant excerpts of statutes imposing confidentiality or the "entirety of any judicial or administrative protective order" at the beginning. The court also said that the appendix failed to contain the required proof of service or that the proof of service shows improper service of material that cannot be served through the e-filing system.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed an antidumping case brought by Vietnamese exporter Godaco Seafood Joint Stock Co. following the company's motion to voluntarily dismiss the case. Godaco was appealing a Court of International Trade decision affirming the Commerce Department's results of the 2015-16 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on fish fillets from Vietnam, in which the court initially rejected the agency's separate rate calculation. Commerce originally calculated the separate rate by averaging the separate rates from the previous four administrative reviews. The court then upheld the calculation after the agency based the separate rate on more contemporaneous data (see 2109270035). No reason was given for the requested dismissal (Godaco Seafood Joint Stock Company v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1202).
Antidumping respondent Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V., along with its U.S. affiliate, will appeal a December Court of International opinion that found that the Commerce Department can reduce an antidumping duty review respondent's U.S. price by the amount of their Section 232 duties paid. According to the Feb. 16 notice of appeal, Deacero will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the opinion, the trade court also said that Commerce does not have to notify the respondent that it intends to reduce the U.S. price by the amount of Section 232 duties paid since notice and comment procedures don't apply to AD administrative procedures (see 2112200051). The case concerns an AD administrative review on rebar from Mexico (Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. v. United States, CIT #20-03924).
Tire exporter Pirelli Tyre signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty case that said the company properly showed that it wasn't under Chinese government control for the first 10 months of an AD review period. Pirelli, a consolidated plaintiff in the AD action, sued to contest Commerce's failure to make this determination (Qingdao Sentury Tire Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #18-00079).
The International Trade Commission can't use export data when making a critical circumstances determination to find whether a surge in imports undermines the remedial effect of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders in question, plaintiff MTD Products said in a Feb. 11 reply brief (MTD Products Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00264).
Both CBP's Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate and its Office of Regulation and Rulings failed to make a factual finding when it said that importers Global Aluminum Distributor and Hialeah Aluminum Supply evaded the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the importers and Dominican producer Kingtom Aluminio said. In two motions for judgment at the Court of International Trade, the plaintiffs and Kingtom both argued that CBP skirted the evidentiary standard, instead basing its conclusion on a vague reference to Kingtom's ties to China and discrepancies between the importers' and Kingtom's records (Global Aluminum Distributor v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00198).