The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices April 4 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The U.S. pushed back April 2 against a petitioner’s motion -- with a defendant-intervenor exporter’s consent -- to stay a challenge to the countervailing duty order review of Indian-origin pneumatic off-the-road tires (Titan Tire Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00207).
The Court of International Trade sent back the Commerce Department's use of UN Comtrade data in the benchmark price for plywood and the use of adverse facts available to find that certain input suppliers are government "authorities" in both the 2019 and 2020 reviews of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Issuing a pair of decisions on the reviews on April 3, Judge Timothy Reif said that while Commerce permissibly found that the Chinese government failed to submit adequate information regarding the input suppliers, the agency ultimately didn't give the foreign government proper notice or opportunity to remedy its deficiencies.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices April 3 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade dismissed two customs cases, one brought by Meijer Distribution and one by Printing Textiles, for failure to prosecute. Both were put on the customs case management calendar but were not removed before the expiration of the "applicable period of time of removal." Meijer's case concerned whether its hand soap entries of Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 3401.30.50 were properly hit with Section 301 tariffs (see 2303130060). Meanwhile, the case from Printing Textiles, doing business as Berger Textiles, was on whether its coated fabric imports were properly subject to antidumping duties (see 2303150073). Neither attorney for either company responded to our requests for comment (Meijer Distribution v. United States, CIT # 23-00061) (Printing Textiles v. United States, CIT # 23-00062).
Rebar exporter Kaptan Demir argued that the U.S. failed to defend the Commerce Department's position in the 2021 countervailing duty review on steel concrete rebar from Turkey that exemptions from Turkey's Banking and Insurance Transactions Tax (BITT) are de jure specific. Filing a reply brief at the Court of International Trade on March 30, Kaptan said the government's position that Kaptan failed to provide evidence that every Turkish company is eligible for the exemption is "factually incorrect" (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #24-00096).
The U.S. on April 1 defended the Commerce Department’s determination that -- in a review of German-origin thermal paper -- mandatory respondent Koehler’s accrued interest on unpaid antidumping duties from a prior 2008 AD order shouldn’t be included in the exporter’s constructed export price. That interest wasn’t incurred as a selling expense, it said. (Domtar Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00113).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that a recent CAFC decision, Pirelli Tyre Co. v. U.S., supports the government's position that the U.S. doesn't need to show a link between the "selection of management and the company’s export activities" in finding that a respondent has failed to show a lack of government control. Filing a notice of supplemental authority in a trio of cases, the government said Pirelli also supports its position that "respondents must meet the burden or persuasion to establish independence regardless of any evidentiary presumption" (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #s 23-2163, -2164) (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).
The Court of International Trade in a pair of decisions on April 3 remanded both the 2019 and 2020 reviews of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. In both decisions, Judge Timothy Reif sent back the Commerce Department's use of UN Comtrade data in setting a benchmark price in assessing the provision of plywood for less than adequate remuneration and the agency's use of adverse facts available to find that certain input suppliers are government "authorities." On the second point, Reif said Commerce appropriately found that the Chinese government's submissions were insufficient but that the agency didn't give the Chinese government proper notice or opportunity to remedy these deficiencies. In the 2019 review, Reif also remanded Commerce's benchmark price for veeners, though the judge sustained the benchmark for inland freight and use of AFA to find use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.
The Commerce Department properly found that the provision of mining rights by the Moroccan government didn't confer a benefit to countervailing duty respondent OCP and that the provision of port services was not countervailable, the Court of International Trade held on April 1.