The COVID-19 pandemic did not give the Commerce Department cover to ignore its statutory obligation to conduct on-site verification in antidumping duty proceedings, the plaintiffs in an ADD case told the Court of International Trade in a Jan. 19 brief. Responding to the Department of Justice's defense of its decision to send an additional questionnaire instead of conducting on-site verification, the plaintiffs, led by Ellwood City Forge Company, said that DOJ's position is not entitled to Chevron deference and that the pandemic did not justify violating the statute (Ellwood City Forge Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00077).
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 21 order denied California Steel Industries' and Welspun Tubular's bid for a stay in a case over the Commerce Department's final results in the third administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded line pipe from South Korea. CSI and Welspun wanted a stay while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit mulls whether Commerce can make a particular market situation adjustment to the cost of production in the sales-below-cost test. CIT said CAFC already ruled against the practice, so the trade court can't be certain that granting the stay would "serve any purpose other than" to just delay resolution of the case.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Jan. 20 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The United States will not participate in the appeal over whether the law permits expedited countervailing duty reviews, the Department of Justice told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 19 letter. In the case, originally brought by the Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations, the Court of International Trade said that there was no legal authority for such reviews (see 2108190002). The decision was then appealed by the Canadian government, among other parties, which argued that the trade court improperly applied Chevron deference to the Commerce Department when it found that two different sections of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act didn't give Commerce the legal authority to carry out expedited reviews (see 2112280025) (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations, et al. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #19-00122).
Just because Section 232 tariffs are placed in Chapter 99 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, this doesn't make them remedial tariffs, the Department of Justice told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 14 brief. The tariffs also aren't temporary, don't count as a double remedy and can be deducted from an antidumping duty respondent's export price, the brief said (Borusan Mannesman Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2097).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Jan. 18-19 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Jan. 18 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):
Steel trailer wheel exporter Zhejiang Jingu Co. will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit two court decisions on the Commerce Department's scope revision in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on steel trailer wheels from China, according to the pair of notices of appeal. In November 2021, the Court of International Trade upheld Commerce's inclusion of steel trailer wheels coated in chrome through a physical vapor deposition process under the ADD/CVD orders on steel trailer wheels while also dropping the retroactive imposition of the duties on subject merchandise (see 2111180043). One case concerns the antidumping duty order and the other is on the countervailing duty order (Trans Texas Tire v. U.S., CIT #19-00188, -00189).
The Commerce Department reasonably hit countervailing duty respondent Uttam Galva Steels Limited with adverse facts available over its failure to reveal its affiliation with a cross-owned producer of the subject merchandise, Lloyds Steel Industries Limited, the Department of Justice told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 14 reply brief. Since Uttam Galva only admitted to affiliation with LSIL after prodding from Commerce, the respondent failed to have cooperated to the best of its ability, justifying the use of AFA, DOJ said (Uttam Galva Steels Limited v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2119).
The Department of Justice backed the Commerce Department's decision to hit antidumping duty review respondent Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group with the China-wide dumping rate despite its full cooperation in the review, in a Jan. 14 brief at the Court of International Trade. DOJ said that after looking at Jinqiao Flooring's ownership makeup, the respondent failed to rebut the presumption of government control and that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld Commerce's bid to use an adverse facts available rate for a separate rate respondent despite its full cooperation (Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group v. U.S. , CIT #18-00191).