Small decorative tiles imported by Maryland Mosaics for use in arts and craft projects are subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on ceramic tile from China (A-570-108/C-570-109), the Commerce Department said in a scope ruling released Sept. 1. Though Maryland Mosaics argued that the AD/CVD orders were meant to cover tiles used in construction, Commerce disagreed, pointing to language in the scope covering all ceramic tiles regardless of end use.
The Commerce Department will again extend, for three days until Sept. 10, its deadline for comments on whether Russia should be considered a non-market economy country for antidumping duty purposes, it said in a notice released Sept. 7. The agency is considering ending Russia's market economy status in AD duty investigations in the context of an AD duty investigation on urea ammonium nitrate solutions from Russia (A-821-831), though any determination as to Russia's status would apply generally to all AD duty proceedings involving the country. Commerce has treated Russia as a market economy since 2002. Companies from NME countries subject to AD duty proceedings must prove independence from government control, or else be assigned to the countrywide entity with AD rates that can reach into the hundreds percent. Comments, which can be submitted by the public and are not limited to participants in the urea ammonium nitrate investigation, had been due Sept. 7 (see 2108250028).
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Defendant-intervenor ABB Enterprise Software will appeal a Court of International Trade decision upholding a zero percent antidumping rate for respondents Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Hyosung Corporation. ABB filed its intent to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 7 notice at CIT. In the case, Chief Judge Mark Barnett only upheld the Commerce Department's remand after the agency dropped its adverse inference against Hyundai and Hyosung, as part of the fourth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from South Korea (see 2107120032). Commerce initially applied total adverse facts available to Hyundai, finding that the company understated its home market gross unit prices by failing to consistently report parts of its home market sales as foreign like product.
Furniture importer Aspects Furniture International has a protectable interest in an antidumping duty evasion case at the very least due to "goodwill, reputation, and freedom to take advantage of business opportunities" concerns, the importer said in an Aug. 30 filing in the Court of International Trade. Responding to the Department of Justice's arguments countering its initial motion for judgment, AFI also said that, contrary to the government's position, CBP's limited administrative avenues to submit written arguments during the investigation were insufficient from a constitutional perspective to reject AFI's due process violation claims (Aspects Furniture International, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-03824).
If the Commerce Department is to deduct Section 232 national security tariffs from exporter Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi's U.S. price in an antidumping duty rate calculation, it should do it at the original 25% rate and not the increased 50% margin subsequently announced by President Donald Trump and later invalidated by the Court of International Trade, the plaintiff said in a Sept. 3 CIT brief at the Court of International Trade (Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00140).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 7 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Commerce Department violated the law in its refusal to accept antidumping respondent OCTAL's new factual information attempting to refute the assumption of affiliation between it and one of its U.S. customers, OCTAL argued in a Sept. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Following a voluntary remand proceeding meant to give OCTAL a shot at commenting on the affiliation determination, OCTAL blasted the agency for not including its new facts in the case attempting to prove that it is not affiliated with the U.S. customer with which it has an exclusive supply agreement (OCTAL Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).
The Commerce Department switched its original determination and relied on the actual costs of prime and non-prime products as reported by an antidumping respondent in Sept. 2 remand results filed at the Court of International Trade. Following the second remand in the case, Commerce made the change after the court sustained the other seven issues under contention in the first remand (Husteel Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00112).
The Commerce Department was wrong to not remove a Section 232 steel tariff adjustment in an antidumping duty calculation in light of the Court of International Trade's opinion finding the tariff hike on Turkish steel was illegal, Turkish steel importer Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret said in a Sept. 2 brief. Following CIT's decision in Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, Commerce should not have deducted the cost of the duties from Borusan's U.S. price in an antidumping case, the exporter argued. Borusan also again argued that Section 232 duties should not be deducted from the U.S. price since, like Section 201 duties, they are remedial, temporary and would be double-counted if deducted (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00132).