The U.S. will reliquidate 352 steel entries from importer Valbruna Slater Stainless without Section 232 duties, though the company will drop its challenge seeking refunds of Section 232 duties on 90 additional entries. Filing a stipulated judgment at the Court of International Trade on Nov. 15, the government and Valbruna reached the settlement regarding the company's entries following court-led mediation (see 2411120056). Under the judgment's terms, CBP will "promptly reliquidate," without Section 232 duties, 352 entries of steel articles from Italy laid out in an attachment to the stipulation (Valbruna Slater Stainless v. United States, CIT # 21-00027).

The U.S. argued Nov. 15 that an importer of Chinese-origin countertops had waived its challenge to CBP’s practice of initiating Enforce and Protect Act inquiries based on the agency’s “date of receipt” of a petition (Superior Commercial Solutions v. United States, CIT # 24-00052).

The U.S. ignored the Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo in defending its circumvention finding on exporter Canadian Solar, the solar panel exporter said in a Nov. 15 reply brief. Canadian Solar said the Commerce Department should not be shown "tremendous" deference, as claimed by the U.S., since the agency doesn't have "unbridled authority to make an affirmative finding of circumvention" (Canadian Solar International v. United States, CIT # 23-00222).

Raising many of the same arguments seen in similar cases (see 2407010059 and 2407030064), a Thai solar panel exporter said Nov. 15 that the U.S. was “misstating” findings and contradicting itself in its own analysis when it found that solar panel importers were circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on solar panels from China based on only one factor in the usual country-of-origin analysis (Trina Solar Science & Technology v. U.S., CIT # 23-00227).

The Commerce Department continued to use German third-country comparison market data in the antidumping duty investigation on mushrooms from the Netherlands on remand at the Court of International Trade. Addressing the court's concern about whether exporter Prochamp's sales to Germany were actually sold in Germany, the agency said the record lets Commerce "reasonably estimate the percentage of German-language-labelled products sold to Prochamp’s largest German customer," which then may have been sold downstream in another German-speaking country "(i.e., Austria)" (Giorgio Foods v. United States, CIT # 23-00133).

The Court of International Trade defined the term "partners" under the statute regarding affiliation analyses in antidumping duty cases as "a for profit cooperative endeavor in which parties share in risk and reward."

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 14 dismissed petitioner Aloha Pencil Co.'s case challenging the Commerce Department's recission of the review of the antidumping duty order on cased pencils from China, covering entries in 2022-23. The court noted that Aloha Pencil failed to timely file a complaint. Counsel for the company didn't respond to request for comment (Aloha Pencil Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00192).

In short remand results released Nov. 14, the Commerce Department said it was removing the 5.46% Export Buyers' Credit Program rate from a solar cell exporter’s countervailing duty (Risen Energy Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00153).

Deficiency notices are only required when the Commerce Department has decided to reject a submission and apply adverse facts available, the government said in oral argument in a case regarding the department’s alleged erroneous failure to apply a constructed export price (CEP) offset to two South Korean steel manufacturers (Wheatland Tube v. U.S., CIT # 22-00160).

Congress gave the Commerce Department wide latitude to go after "masked" dumping, the Court of International Trade said in a decision made public Nov. 15 that upheld the agency's differential pricing analysis.