The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

A horizontal lawnmower engine should not have been included under the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc from China in a Commerce Department scope ruling simply because it is used in walk-behind mowers, exporter Zhejiang Amerisun Technology said in a July 7 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Zhejiang Amerisun Technology v. U.S., CIT # 23-00011).

The Commerce Department's decision to countervail glass subsidies on remand improperly relied on post hoc rationalization, plaintiff-appellant Guangzhou Jangho Curtain Wall System Engineering said during July 10 oral arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Taizhou United Imp. & Exp. Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2000).

The Commerce Department failed to explain its deviation from its past decision finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's first through third debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable, the Court of International Trade said in a July 7 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that the evidence Commerce cited in justifying the past decision did not directly deal with these three restructurings and is thus "not a sufficient explanation to justify departing from its standard practice." Choe-Groves also sent back Commerce's uncreditworthy benchmark rate because the department failed to address potentially contradictory evidence as part of the 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel goods from South Korea.

The Court of International Trade in a July 11 opinion remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. Judge Jane Restani upheld Commerce's tier-three benchmark calculation for natural gas, which included the import-specific 20% value-added tax and 5% import duty, along with the agency's decision to countervail phosphate rock mining licenses issued by the Russian government to exporters EuroChem and PhosAgro. Restani sent back Commerce's decision to use a "Profit Before Tax" figure to account for exported phosphate rock prices when calculating PhosAGro's profit ratio. The judge also remanded Commerce's reliance on PhosAgro's cost information and its explanation for why it found EuroChem's cost information supported.

The Court of International Trade on July 7 remanded a case contesting an antidumping duty administrative review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The still-confidential order from Judge M. Miller Baker directs Commerce to reconsider its surrogate country selection process and to consider countries at a “comparable level of economic development” as potential surrogates on an equal basis with countries Commerce deems to be at “the same level of economic development” (Catfish Farmers of America, et al. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00380).

The Court of International Trade in a July 7 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel goods from South Korea. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce failed to adequately explain why it deviated from its past finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's first through third debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable. The evidence cited by the agency in justifying deviating from this practice did not directly deal with these three restructurings and is thus "not a sufficient explanation to justify departing from its standard practice," the judge said. Choe-Groves also sent back Commerce's uncreditworthy benchmark rate since Commerce failed to address potentially contradictory evidence.

No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

A case at the Court of International Trade contesting Commerce's lack of adjustment for non-selected companies' antidumping duty rates for export subsidies was dismissed on July 5 after agreement by all parties (Federation of Indian Quartz Surface Industry v. U.S., CIT # 23-00026). The case, originally brought in February by the Federation of Indian Quartz Surface Industry, contested as[ects of the final results of the AD administrative review on quartz surface products from India. The Quartz Federation had argued that Commerce inappropriately failed to adjust the cash deposit rate by the amount found to be subsidized in the companion CVD investigation (see 2302280014).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 5 dismissed importer Amsted Rail's conflict-of-interest suit concerning attorney Daniel Pickard and his firm, Buchanan Ingersoll, in an injury proceeding at the International Trade Commission. Amsted Rail filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal a few days prior in the suit that the Court of International Trade previously dismissed for lack of jurisdiction (see 2211160057).