The Commerce Department shouldn't have rejected a questionnaire response in an antidumping duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Spain, considering that the agency relied on responses from the relevant company on remand, Siemens Gemesa Renewable Energy argued in its July 17 remand comments at the Court of International Trade (Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy v. U.S., CIT # 21-00449).

Australian exporter BlueScope Steel is asking the Court of International Trade to overturn the International Trade Commission's decision to cumulate imports from Australia with shipments from other countries in its sunset review of the AD orders on the steel goods from Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and the U.K. (BlueScope Steel v. U.S., CIT # 22-00353).

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The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative exceeded its authority in imposing the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs on China, covering a total of $320 billion worth of Chinese imports, plaintiff-appellants in the massive case against the duties, led by HTMX Industries and Jasco Products Co., argued in their opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Appealing the Court of International Trade's decision upholding the tariffs (see 2204010061), the companies said USTR did not have the authority to set the duties since the authority was not directly delegated by Congress, in violation of the "major questions doctrine" (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).

Tire exporters Guizhou Tyre and Aeolus Tyre will appeal a Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's decision to deny separate rate status to the companies as part of the seventh administrative review of the antidumping duty order on off-road tires from China. Per a pair of appeal notices, the companies will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the decision, the trade court said the agency properly used the China-wide AD rate of 105.31% on the companies after finding that the companies failed to rebut the presumption of government control (see 2305190026) (Guizhou Tyre v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 17-00100).

The Commerce Department's use of alternative characteristics of superabsorbent polymers supplied by antidumping respondent LG Chem to set control numbers (CONNUMs) in an AD investigation should be remanded, The Ad Hoc Coalition of American SAP Producers said in a July 14 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. The coalition said the department's use of unverified and unrequested alternative superabsorbent polymer characteristics contravened an established practice (The Ad Hoc Coalition of American SAP Producers v. U.S., CIT # 23-00010).

The Commerce Department reversed its imposition of total adverse facts available on antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners in its July 17 remand results, resulting in a complete removal of a 154.33% AD rate for the company, Oman Fasteners, Commerce had ruled had failed to cooperate to the best of its ability because it did not submit all of its responses to a supplemental questionnaire by the deadline. The single late submission missed Commerce's cut-off time by 16 minutes and Court of International Trade Judge M. Miller Baker said that the ensuing suit was "not a close case" when he remanded the results in a February opinion (see 2302280040) (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., CIT # 22-00348)..

The Commerce Department "misapplied the statutory standard" for picking surrogate countries in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam by excluding candidate countries that have a comparable level of economic development, the Court of International Trade ruled in a July 7 opinion made public July 17.

Conservation groups Sea Shepherd New Zealand and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society filed a joint motion for stay of litigation with the government in a case challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2020 findings that New Zealand's standards for its West Coast North Island inshore trawl and set net fisheries were comparable with U.S. regulations (Sea Shepherd New Zealand, et al. v. United States, CIT # 20-00112).

The U.S. opposed a motion at the Court of International Trade from importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) seeking a stay of enforcement of judgment pending appeal in a customs spat on frozen fruit mixtures. The government said that a stay is "unnecessary and not contemplated by the law for this type of case" since Section 1581(a) of CIT's jurisdiction statute tells CBP "not to effectuate a judgment until it becomes final." Since the case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the trade court's judgment is not final (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. United States, CIT # 20-00131).