The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in the fourth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from Korea in a July 9 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett upheld the results after Commerce dropped its adverse inference against Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Hyosung Corporation when calculating their antidumping duty rates. The result left both respondents in the review with a zero percent duty rate.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 9 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Global Aluminum Distributor backed Kingtom Aluminio's renewed bid to join a lawsuit over an Enforce and Protect Act investigation that found it helped importers evade antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China, while the original EAPA alleger, Ta Chen International, disputed Kingtom's motion for reconsideration in the case, in briefs filed July 7 (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC v. U.S., CIT #21-00198). Kingtom asks the Court of International Trade to reverse its own June 21 decision that Kingtom can't intervene in the case, brought by the importers found to have evaded AD/CV duties.
The Commerce Department swapped the surrogate labor data it used to calculate normal value in an antidumping investigation after it reconsidered evidence showing signs of forced labor in Malaysia's electrical and electronics [E&E] sector, according to July 8 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. Finding that this forced labor unfairly skewed the labor costs for consideration as surrogate data, Commerce instead opted to use International Labor Comparisons data for Mexico in 2016 to determine the surrogate labor value (New American Keg v. United States, CIT #20-00008).
Two importers of steel grating from China didn't declare the goods as subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders as required, CBP said in a recently posted notice of determination. CBP made the determination following an allegation from Hog Slat that prompted an investigation into Ikadan System USA and Weihai Gaosai Metal Product under the Enforce and Protect Act. The investigation involved entries of "galvanized steel Tri-Bar Floor product (tribar floors), composed of rolled steel rods welded to another steel cross rod (i.e., a product of two or more pieces of steel joined together by assembly)," CBP said.
Among the recent plethora of lawsuits filed in the Court of International Trade challenging the constitutionality of the Enforce and Protect Act process for investigating evasion of antindumping and countervailing duty orders (see 2106070011), at least one invokes the Eighth Amendment, a rarely litigated part of the U.S. Constitution. Filed by trade lawyer David Craven on behalf of Global Aluminum Distributor, the lawsuit challenges EAPA penalties based on the amendment's prohibition on excessive fines.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 8 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Garg Tube Export and Garg Tube Limited want their challenge to the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes from India in the Court of International Trade stayed pending their appeal in a related case over the existence of a particular market situation for hot-rolled coil in India. The Federal Circuit appeal will also address the Commerce Department's application of adverse facts available due to the plaintiffs' unaffiliated vendor's failure to submit costs of production data. Garg's July 6 motion to stay received the consent of the two defendant-intervenors, Nucor Tubular Products and Wheatland Tube, but will meet opposition from the Justice Department (Garg Tube Export LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00169).
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration will be allowed to intervene in a Court of International Trade countervailing duty case on silicon metal from Kazakhstan, a July 6 order said. In Kazakhstan's initial attempt, Judge Leo Gordon had found the trade ministry failed to comply with court rules governing intervention, including failure to state the issues it wished to litigate. The ministry made the corrections in a “renewed motion to intervene as plaintiff-intervenor” but faced pushback from the petitioners in the CVD case, who argued that the renewed motion was untimely (see 2107060031). The Justice Department did not oppose the ministry's intervention.