The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 26 order stayed the consideration of the merits of plaintiff Environment One's claims in a case seeking to apply retroactive Section 301 exclusions until the court settles the U.S.'s motion to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. DOJ moved to stay consideration of Environment One's claim its merchandise falls within the scope of the claimed exclusion, arguing the stay "would advance the interests of justice" and "could render litigation on the nature of plaintiff's imported merchandise to be unnecessary." Judge Mark Barnett agreed (Environment One v. U.S., CIT #22-00124).

The U.S.'s rationale for hitting antidumping respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipes Ind. with adverse facts available -- that the company did not respond to the best of its ability -- is "conclusory, superficial, and unsupported by record evidence," Ajmal argued in an Aug. 26 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The Commerce Department ignored the entire record when denying one of Ajmal's questionnaire submissions and its extension request, and then applying AFA, since COVID-19 restrictions created an "extraordinary circumstance," and justified the late filing, the brief said (Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipes Ind. v. United States, CIT #21-00587).

The Commerce Department erred when it continued to rely on adverse facts available despite a remand order invalidating the agency’s original reasoning for the AFA rate, Cabinets To Go (CTG), a U.S. retail chain, said in its Aug. 29 comments filed to the Court of International Trade. CTG intervened in the challenge to a final determination from Commerce’s antidumping duty investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China (Dalian Meisen Woodworking v. U.S., CIT # 20-00109) because the calculated rates of its own suppliers were based on AFA rates for Meisen.

The International Trade Commission’s finding that imports of methionine from Spain and Japan had a significant impact on the domestic industry and contributed to its declining performance was reasonable and correct, the government said in an Aug. 29 motion at the Court of International Trade (Adisseo Espana v. U.S., CIT #21-00562). The motion came in response to an Aug. 12 motion by Spanish exporter Adisseo, which argued that the commission overvalued the importance of price in its determination of injury in the antidumping duty investigation (see 2208150017).

Antidumping duty respondent Nagase & Co's oversight in submitting information to the Commerce Department leading to a "patently erroneous assessment rate," does not justify Commerce shirking its responsibility to provide remedial fairness, Nagase argued in an Aug. 29 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. While Nagase admits to its error, the respondent argued that Commerce still has an obligation to correct the mistake now that the agency knows of its existence (Nagase & Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00574).

The Florida Tomato Exchange, plaintiff in a case challenging an antidumping duty suspension agreement, moved to voluntarily drop its case, in an Aug. 29 motion at the Court of International Trade. The case was stayed pending resolution of another similar challenge led by Jem D. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the trade court's dismissal of the Jem D case, which included a challenge to the termination of the 2013 suspension agreement over imports of fresh tomatoes from Mexico (The Florida Tomato Exchange v. United States, CIT #13-00148).

Three separate lawsuits at the Court of International Trade are challenging the results of the Commerce Department's eighth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China. All three suits allege Commerce made errors in its calculations and choice of data, particularly its surrogate values, during the review.

The Commerce Department properly reversed its reliance on adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review, lowering the dumping rate for respondent BlueScope Steel from 99.20% to 4.95%, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Aug. 30 opinion. Commerce dropped the use of AFA from the review after issuing a supplemental questionnaire to BlueScope to get U.S. sales quantity and value reporting data from the respondent.

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The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 26 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case over the 2016-17 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea. In the remand results, Commerce reversed its decisions finding that a particular market situation existed for a key input of the OCTG products, and adjusting respondent Nexteel Co.'s reported costs for the value of non-prime products at their sales price and allocating the difference between the full production cost and market value of the non-prime products to the production costs of the prime OCTG.