The Court of International Trade denied a motion to stay in a challenge to the all-others rate in a countervailing duty administrative review until a decision is made on a motion to dismiss the case. Denying the motion from petitioner Dexstar Wheel in a text order, Judge Mark Barnett ordered that a joint proposed briefing schedule be submitted by close of business on Feb. 15. Rimco filed the lawsuit challenging the Commerce Department's all-others rate in the countervailing duty review of steel wheels 12 to 16.5 inches in diameter from China. Dexstar argued that Commerce did not actually set an all-others rate in the review since the only two respondents for which rates were given received the China-wide adverse facts available rate. The petitioner moved to dismiss the case for failure to state a claim (see 2201250070) (Rimco v. United States, CIT #21-00588).

A respondent in an antidumping duty investigation says Commerce's failure to conduct on-site verification cost it the opportunity to correct deficiencies in questionnaires sent by the agency instead, causing the respondent, Asia Pacific Fibers, to get a total adverse facts available AD rate, the company said in a Feb. 14 complaint at the Court of International Trade (PT. Asia Pacific Fibers TBK v. United States, CIT #22-00007).

The Commerce Department reversed its decision to collapse two mandatory respondents and one of their affiliates in an antidumping duty investigation. In a bid to bring its stance in line with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Commerce said in Feb. 14 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade that evidence to collapse all three entities was insufficient, particularly because evidence from the two mandatory respondents didn't show any common ownership. The agency also reinstated its use of adverse facts available over one of the respondents' reporting of its products' yield strength (Prosperity Tieh Enterprise Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #16-00138).

The Commerce Department erred when it found that Al Ghurair Iron & Steel LLC circumvented the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on corrosion-resistant steel products (CORE) from China via the United Arab Emirates, AGIS said in its Feb. 14 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1199).

The Commerce Department complied with the Court of International Trade's remand instructions when it found that certain door thresholds qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the Justice Department said in a pair of Feb. 14 reply briefs. Filing its responses in two separate cases, one brought by Columbia Aluminum Products and the other by Worldwide Door Components, Commerce said that it relied on CIT's rulings to find that the plaintiffs' door thresholds qualified for the finished merchandise exclusion while ignoring prior authorities that established that a subassembly could not qualify for the exclusion (Worldwide Door Components v. United States, CIT #19-00012) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00013).

The Court of International Trade granted Turkish steel exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi's motions for judgment in two cases on the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into prestressed concrete steel wire strand from Turkey. Celik challenges the Commerce Department's refusal to accept questionnaire responses that were filed 21 and 87 minutes late in the AD and CVD cases, respectively. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the rejections amounted to an abuse of discretion and imposed a "draconian penalty" on Celik for a "minor and inadvertent technical error by its counsel that had no appreciable effect on the" investigations.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 14 order granted an injunction until the conclusion of litigation against the liquidation of two plaintiffs' mattress imports. The Department of Justice pushed back against that timeline. It urged an end date of April 30, the same end date as the first administrative review period of the antidumping duty order the plaintiffs are contesting. Judge Gary Katzmann said that the plaintiffs, Best Mattresses International and Rose Lion Furniture International, sufficiently showed a likelihood to succeed on the merits of the case and that they would be irreparably harmed without the indefinite injunction.

A customs broker license test taker filed suit at the Court of International Trade after two appeals of her final score on the Customs Broker License Examination failed to result in a passing grade. Filing the case without an attorney, Shuzhen Zhong wants the court to review the six questions she appealed to CBP, of which she only received credit for one upon reconsideration. Zhong took particular issue with CBP's getting both her address and gender wrong when returning the results of her appeal (Zhong v. United States, CIT #22-00041).

The Commerce Department reasonably derived the separate rate respondents' dumping margin in an antidumping duty investigation by averaging the mandatory respondents' zero percent and adverse facts available rates, petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a Feb. 3 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to arguments made by the plaintiffs, led by Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., Celtic Co. and Taraca Pacific, the coalition said that Commerce properly relied on the information laid out in the petition to derive the rates since it was already vetted by Commerce as part of the pre-initiation phase of the investigation (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #18-00002).

The effective dates of the Commerce Department's partial revocation of the antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells from China ran contrary to the agency's stated practice, because they excluded unliquidated entries that weren't subject to the final results of an administrative review or automatic liquidation at the time, importer Source Global said in a Feb. 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Source Global, PBC v. United States, CIT #22-00009).