The Court of International Trade in a confidential Dec. 20 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules, from China. In the remand results, Commerce dropped its use of partial adverse facts available over unreported factors of production data, reverting to neutral facts available, and changed how it values silver paste using Malaysian surrogate data (see 2207070047). However, the agency stuck by positions previously sent back by the trade court on how to value backsheets and ethyl vinyl acetate using surrogate data. In a letter to the litigants, Judge Claire Kelly said she wishes to issue a public version of the opinion on "or shortly after" Jan. 4 (Risen Energy Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 20-03743).
CBP has no authority to pay interest when refunding money voluntarily tendered with prior disclosures, DOJ argued in a Dec. 15 motion at the Court of International Trade. The government's motion was in response to phone case importer Otter Products' Sept. 12 motion for judgment, in which the company argued that 19 U.S.C. 1520(a)(3) "unambiguously authorizes" the treasury department to refund duties or other receipts whenever money is deposited in the Treasury (see 2209130029) (Otter Products v. United States, CIT #22-00033).
The Commerce Department illegally hit antidumping respondent Unicatch Industrial Co. with adverse facts available over the fact that the company did not submit a complete cost reconciliation, Unicatch and other appellants argued in a Dec. 19 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Unicatch, along with TC International, Hor Liang Industrial Corp. and Romp Coil Nails Industries, argued that all the data needed to complete the cost reconciliation was on the record, meaning the respondent "could have easily completed the reconciliation in a manner required if it had realized that Commerce was not satisfied with its response" (Pro-Team Coil Nail Enterprise v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2241).
Court of International Trade Judge Claire Kelly sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a case concerning the antidumping duty investigation on fabricated structural steel from Mexico, in a Dec. 13 decision. Kelly found Commerce's changes and explanations reasonable and based on substantial evidence in accordance with law that complied with the court’s March remand order (see 2203310028).
The Commerce Department cannot set the all-others rate in an antidumping duty review by taking a simple average of a de minimis and an adverse facts available rate, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Dec. 21 opinion. Sending the case back to Commerce for the fifth time, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves cited a key U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling that made the same determination. The judge said that the court's rules "require the just and speedy determination of every action and proceeding," so the agency should refrain from "submitting the same unreasonable-as-applied, punitive all-others separate rate."
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 21 opinion denied U.S. Steel Corp.'s motion to intervene in a case brought by Seneca Foods Corp. on the Commerce Department's denial of Section 232 exclusion requests. The trade court cited the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in California Steel Industries v. U.S., in which the appellate court denied U.S. Steel the right to intervene in a different Section 232 exclusion denial challenge. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that this precedent establishes that the steel maker doesn't have the right to intervene under the trade court's rules.
The Commerce Department on Dec. 19 filed a pair of remand redeterminations at the Court of International Trade that exclude ductile iron flanges imported by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, and Star Pipe Products from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China. The trade court previously said the remand results were not issued in a form that the court could sustain. On remand, the agency clarified that it doesn't intend to issue a scope ruling after the court's review of the case, declaring that if the court affirms the remand, a Federal Register notice will be released stating that Crane's and Star Pipe's flanges are outside the scope of the order (MCC Holdings dba Crane Resistoflex v. U.S., CIT # 18-00248) (Star Pipe Products v. United States, CIT # 17-00236).
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The Court of International Trade should dismiss a case from importer Southern Cross Seafood involving the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) for lack of jurisdiction, the U.S. argued in a Dec. 19 motion. Measures involving the CCAMLR belong exclusively at district courts and the statute "could not be more clear," the brief said. The case challenges the National Marine Fisheries Service's decision to deny Southern Cross' application for preapproval to import Chilean sea bass (Southern Cross Seafoods v. United States, CIT # 22-00299).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 20 opinion denied an injunction bid pending appeal from certain plaintiffs in an attorney conflict-of interest suit. After recently rejecting the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Judge Gary Katzmann this time rejected the injunction motion pending appeal since the appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "has not yet been noticed," but even if it had, the injunction "is unwarranted." Katzmann said that the plaintiffs fail to both show a "strong showing of success on the merits" and prove that they will suffer irreparable harm without the injunction.