The Commerce Department went too far when hitting antidumping respondent BlueScope Steel Ltd. with total adverse facts available in an AD review, the Court of International Trade said in a Nov. 30 opinion, made public on Dec. 8. Remanding the case to Commerce, Judge Richard Eaton said that Commerce failed to back its AFA finding for two reasons: it did not show that BlueScope's responses created a gap in the record over its U.S. sales quantity and value report, and failed to give notice of deficient responses relating to reconciling BlueScope's U.S. and home market sales information with prior submissions.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 8 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade partially sided with solar cell importer Aireko Construction, instructing CBP to properly liquidate its entries in accordance with the Commerce Department's instructions, but ruled against Aireko by finding that the importer did not properly challenge the instructions themselves. In a Dec. 7 opinion, Judge Claire Kelly said that CBP needs to correct its error by applying antidumping and countervailing duty rates different from those listed in Commerce's instructions but that Aireko failed to launch a challenge under Section 1581(i) -- CIT's "residual" jurisdiction -- to challenge the instructions.
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The Court of International Trade cannot set aside case law finding that subassemblies do not qualify for the finished merchandise exclusion in antidumping and countervailing duty order scope rulings, Judge Stephen Vaden said in a Dec. 6 opinion. Siding with the Commerce Department over plaintiffs China Customs Manufacturing and Greentec Engineering, the court said the plaintiffs' solar roof mountings fall within the scope of the AD/CVD orders on aluminum extrusion from China.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 8 sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results in a case over an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, covering entries from 2014-15. In her second opinion of the day, nearly identical to the first, Judge Claire Kelly upheld Commerce's switch to valuing nitrogen using Mexican imports rather than Thai imports after the court previously said the agency's use of the Thai surrogate data was improper. Under "respectful protest," Commerce used the Mexican data, and none of the plaintiffs, led by Canadian Solar International Limited, objected.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 8 sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results in a case over an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, covering entries from 2013-14. Judge Claire Kelly upheld Commerce's switch to valuing a key solar cell input using Bulgarian imports rather than Thai imports after the court previously said the agency's use of the Thai surrogate data was improper. Under "respectful protest," Commerce used the Bulgarian data, and none of the plaintiffs, led by Solarworld Americas, Inc., objected.
The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results in the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia, in a Nov. 30 opinion made public Dec. 8. Judge Richard Eaton remanded Commerce's use of total adverse facts available after finding that the agency failed to show that mandatory respondent BlueScope's responses created a gap in the record and didn't provide the company with a notice of deficient responses. The court ordered that Commerce shall use BlueScope's quantity and value submissions unless it gives a "reasoned explanation" as to why this data is unusable for key considerations in the review.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 7 on AD/CV duty proceedings: