The Court of International Trade should consolidate two cases -- one of which is already a consolidated action brought by two importers -- because they both are challenging the same Enforce and Protect Act determination, the U.S. argued in an Aug. 19 brief. The cases -- one led by Far East American, the other led by InterGlobal Forest -- argue that CBP wasn't authorized to initiate the EAPA investigation and that CBP violated the plaintiffs' due process rights, and should be consolidated to preserve judicial efficiency, the U.S. said (Far East American v. U.S., CIT #22-00213) (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT #22-00214).

The Court of International Trade should send back the Commerce Department's constructed value (CV) profit rate for antidumping respondent Building Systems de Mexico (BSM) if the court does not uphold the de minimis rate calculated by Commerce on remand, BSM argued in Aug. 19 comments. Arguing that the remand results should be sustained, BSM, replying to the AD petitioner, continued to critique the CV profit rate in case the de minimis rate is not upheld (Building Systems de Mexico v. United States, CIT #20-00069).

Importer Mirror Metals and the Commerce Department need more time to work out the details of refunding Section 232 duties following Commerce's decision to grant retroactive tariff exclusion bids, according to an Aug. 22 status report filed with the Court of International Trade (Mirror Metals v. U.S., CIT #21-00144).

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The Commerce Department unlawfully used an alternate method for calculating normal value in an antidumping duty review on goods from China, respondent Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products argued in an Aug. 22 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. The exporter argued Commerce illegally based normal value on the price at which the subject merchandise, square tubes, is sold in other countries, rather than base normal value on the quantity of raw materials used to make the square tubes (Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products Co. v. U.S., CIT #22-00116).

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 24 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results in a case on the 2015-16 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea. In the remand results, Commerce dropped its finding that a particular market situation distorted the price of a key input of the steel pipe. Previously in the case, the agency dropped the PMS adjustment to one of the AD review respondents but not the other. The elimination of the adjustment for the other in the fourth remand results resulted in a decrease in non-selected respondent SeAH Steel Corp.'s dumping rate from 19.28% to 9.77%.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Aug. 19 issued its mandate in an antidumping duty case brought by Prime Time Commerce. In June, the appellate court ruled that Prime Time failed to exhaust its administrative remedies for its argument that the Commerce Department should look to confidential information to provide "gap-filling" data needed to calculate a rate separate from the China-wide antidumping margin (see 2206280038). The Federal Circuit further ruled that while CIT and Commerce erred in not accepting Prime Time's submissions since it is an "interested party," the error was a harmless one. The case concerned the administrative review of the AD order on cased pencils from China (Prime Time Commerce v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1783).

The Commerce Department in Aug. 22 comments at the Court of International Trade urged acceptance of its remand results in which it verified that a countervailing duty respondent's U.S. customers did not use China's Export Buyer's Credit Program. Commerce said that since it complied with the court's order to verify the U.S. customers' claims that they did not use the EBCP and that no parties oppose the remand, the court should uphold the decision that dropped the CVD rate from 25.90% to 15.36% (Both-Well (Taizhou) Steel Fittings Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00166).

The Commerce Department erred when using adverse facts available over the reporting of various Malaysian inland freight data in antidumping duty respondent Euro SME's home market and U.S. sales databases, the respondent argued in an Aug. 19 brief at the Court of International Trade. Euro SME further railed against Commerce's use of AFA over the reporting of certain sales data kept in the normal course of business (Euro SME v. United States, CIT #22-00108).

The Commerce Department erred in rejecting food and vegetable processing giant Seneca Foods Corporation's requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, Seneca argued in an Aug. 19 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The vegetable canning company said that Commerce violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to meaningfully consider and explain its rejection of the exclusion requests (Seneca Foods Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00243).