Steel company Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company, plaintiff in an antidumping scope challenge, signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results excluding the exporter's dual-stenciled pipe from the scope of the order. In October, the Court of International Trade said that Commerce was wrong to include the dual-stenciled pipe in the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, seeing as there was no International Trade Commission injury determination on line pipe from Thailand (see 2110070029). On remand, Commerce excluded dual-stenciled pipe from the order under respectful protest. Saha Thai said these results comply with the court's orders and should be sustained (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company, Limited v. United States, CIT #20-00133).
The Court of International Trade properly found that there was no statutory basis for conducting expedited countervailing duty reviews, plaintiff-appellee Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 31 reply brief. The language in certain sections of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act doesn't establish that Congress "clearly and unambiguously" meant for Commerce to set up CVD expedited review procedures, the committee said (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1021).
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hopes to be able to support the House China package, since the trade group supported the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, but said the House bill "continues to include numerous policies that would undermine U.S. competitiveness, and Members are being denied the opportunity to vote on amendments to address these issues." The Chamber said it will push during the conference process to get better bill.
The Commerce Department must either conduct verification in an antidumping case, even if virtually, or more fully explain why it didn't conduct virtual verification in the face of a request to do so, the Court of International Trade said in a Feb. 2 decision. Judge Stephen Vaden expressed doubts over whether Commerce could complete the latter option, given that the agency failed to respond to the request for virtual verification. Commerce said no verification was conducted due to COVID-19-related restrictions. Vaden lambasted Commerce over this rationale given high-level U.S. officials' trips to India, the location of the would-be verification.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 2-3 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Feb. 1 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):
Defendant-appellants in a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test said that the issue had already been decided by the Federal Circuit in a recent decision. In a letter to the appellate court, the defendant-appellants, Nucor Tubular Products, Atlas Tube and Searing Industries, said that they intend to seek initial en banc reconsideration in light of this opinion or a stay of further proceedings pending full resolution of this separate case (Dong-A Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2153).
The Court of International Trade upheld for the second time the Commerce Department's decision that no benefit was conferred to South Korean steel companies through the provision of electricity. In a decision written on Jan. 21 but made public on Feb. 1, Judge Mark Barnett sustained Commerce's decision after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded it for unlawfully relying on price discrimination instead of a thorough fair-market principles evaluation. Barnett said Commerce has now addressed the Federal Circuit's concerns.
Transformer coil winding conductors from Canada made from Chinese aluminum sheet and exported to the U.S. by Hammond Power Solutions remain subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on common alloy aluminum sheet from China (A-570-073/C-570-074), said the Commerce Department in a Jan. 20 scope ruling. The transformer coil windings are still described by the scope of the orders, and the processing in Canada does not substantially transform the conductors into products from that country.
BGI Group, doing business as U.S. Cabinet Depot, evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, CBP said in a Jan. 27 Enforce and Protect Act determination. BGI evaded the orders by misrepresenting the country of origin of its entries as Vietnam, the agency said. While BGI maintained that its Vietnamese supplier, HOCA Vietnam, further processed components from China, CBP said that the orders' scope language still includes such products.