Turkish steel exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret kicked off litigation at the Court of International Trade in an Oct. 19 complaint over a countervailing duty review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey covering entries in 2018, arguing against the Commerce Department's finding that ship building company Nur Gemicilik ve Tic is a cross-owned input supplier of Kaptan (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00565).
The Commerce Department dropped its reliance on facts otherwise available in a countervailing duty review related to a South Korean port usage rights program, in Oct. 20 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. Having filed for a voluntary remand at CIT to tackle what it identified as its own mistakes in relying on facts otherwise available, Commerce found it no longer needed to apply facts available after receiving additional information from the relvant exporter (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, CIT #20-03799).
The entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should hear a case over whether tapered roller bearing importer Wanxiang America Corp. has jurisdiction to challenge guidance issued from the Commerce Department to CBP on the assessment of antidumping duties, the importer argued in an Oct. 18 petition at the Federal Circuit. Arguing that a panel at the appellate court's decision will force importers subject to customs penalty claims into a "Hobbesian choice," that will "eviscerate their right to judicial review," the entire court should reverse the panel's ruling, WAC argued (Wanxiang America Corporation v. United States, Fed. Cir. #20-1044).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 20 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Consolidated plaintiff M S International will appeal an Oct. 7 Court of International Trade decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to an Oct. 18 notice of appeal. CIT ruled that the Commerce Department had enough industry support to kick off antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products from India (see 2110080035). The trade court held that Commerce has the right to define domestic “producers” of the subject merchandise for the purposes of finding out if enough industry support exists to launch the investigations. Judge Leo Gordon cited Federal Circuit precedent that Commerce is afforded Chevron deference in how it finds which companies are considered “producers” (Pokarna Engineered Stone Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00127).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty review dropping a cost-based particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test, in an Oct. 19 order. Commerce dropped the PMS adjustment after the court previously found that the law does not permit such an adjustment for the purposes of calculating normal value (see 2106220064).
The Court of International remanded in part and sustained in part the final results of the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea, in an Oct. 19 order. Tackling six different issues raised by the plaintiff, AD respondent SeAH Steel Corp., Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sustained Commerce's constructed export price profit rate and its exclusion of freight revenue profit, while remanding Commerce's use of the Cohen's d test in its differential pricing analysis when identifying masked dumping and the agency's particular market situation determination.
Alan Wolff, a former deputy director-general at the World Trade Organization, called on China to join the WTO Pharmaceutical Agreement, play a constructive role in the fisheries negotiations, and lead in restarting the Environmental Goods Agreement.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 19 on AD/CV duty proceedings: