Defendant-intervenor Endura Products dropped out of an Enforce and Protect Act case at the Court of International Trade after its bid for a stay in the action pending the resolution of a scope proceeding also at the trade court was denied (see 2302060069). Submitting a motion to withdraw Feb. 21, Endura said it "no longer has an interest in the current appeal" (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00185).

The Commerce Department "explicitly mischaracterized record evidence" when it said countervailing duty respondent Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co.'s (GRT's) only U.S. customer didn't certify that it had not used China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, the respondent argued in a Feb. 17 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Commerce also failed to properly use adverse facts available over the EBCP, since the agency is required to find whether any information on the record could fill the gap that renders AFA unnecessary, but did not, the motion said (Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co., Ltd., v. United States, CIT # 22-00229).

A horizontal lawnmower engine should be excluded from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc from China, given the plain language of the orders' scope excludes horizontal engines, exporter Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. argued in a Feb. 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00011).

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 23 order denied antidumping respondent SeAH Steel's request for reconsideration of the court's opinion upholding the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis. SeAH said the case should be reconsidered given the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's opinion in Stupp v. U.S. calling into question the use of the test, which is used to root out "masked" dumping. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled the use of an entire population of data rather than just a sample "sufficiently negates" the questions raised in Stupp.

Alternative characteristics used by the Commerce Department that were supplied by antidumping duty respondent LG Chem to set control numbers (CONNUMs) in an AD investigation had no relationship to actual prices and costs, and are distortive and create the potential for manipulation, AD petitioner The Ad Hoc Coalition of American SAP Producers said in a Feb. 17 complaint at the Court of International Trade (The Ad Hoc Coalition of American SAP Producers v. U.S., CIT # 23-00010).

Plaintiff Risen Energy Co. will appeal a December 2022 Court of International Trade opinion involving the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China. Per a Feb. 21 notice, Risen will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the proceeding, the trade court upheld Commerce's surrogate value picks for silver paste, a solar cell input, backsheet and ethyl vinyl acetate and its decision to use partial neutral facts available instead of adverse facts available (see 2301050026) (Risen Energy Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT # 20-03743).

A Commerce remand determination on welded carbon steel pipes and tubes should be upheld by the Court of International Trade despite a separate Commerce remand redetermination that dual-stenciled pipe and tube is not covered by an antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes, the government argued in a brief filed Feb. 17 (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company, Limited v. United States, CIT # 21-00627).

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The U.S. on Feb. 17 filed a customs penalty case against importer Fortune Energy, saying that the company falsely declared its aluminum extrusions as not subject to antidumping and countervailing duties when they should have been entered as Type 03. Alleging negligent violations of Section 1592, the government seeks a $120,004.30 penalty, based on double the amount of duties avoided by the importer (U.S. v. Fortune Energy, CIT # 23-00040).

The Commerce Department illegally reversed its initial decision that lemon juice exporter Louis Dreyfus Co. was not affiliated with its primary fresh lemon supplier on the grounds that the company had no close supplier relationship with the lemon grower, U.S. company Ventura Coastal argued in a Feb. 16 complaint at the Court of International Trade. In the complaint, Ventura also railed against Commerce's decision to exclude certain administrative expenses pertaining to services provided by Louis Dreyfus' parent company or affiliated holding companies from the exporter's general and administrative expense rate calculation (Ventura Coastal v. United States, CIT # 23-00009).