The Court of International Trade in a June 15 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to drop its particular market situation adjustment to antidumping duty respondent Hyundai Steel Corp.'s cost of production. However, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sent back the agency's decision to continue making a PMS adjustment to the other mandatory respondent Husteel Co.'s normal value when calculating non-examined respondent SeAH Steel Corp.'s dumping margin.

The Commerce Department properly found that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports didn't circumvent the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a June 15 opinion. Affirming the Court of International Trade's opinion, the Federal Circuit said that the merchandise was commercially available before Dec. 8, 2016, and was thus not later-developed merchandise that circumvented the AD/CVD orders.

CBP no longer believes importers Global Aluminum Distributor and Hialeah Aluminum Supply evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China by transshipping them through Dominican manufacturer Kingtom Aluminio. Filing its remand results at the Court of International Trade in a case related to the Enforce and Protect Act investigation, CBP said that after taking another look at the record, it cannot conclude that evasion took place (Global Aluminum Distributor v. United States, CIT #21-00198).

CBP properly denied payouts of interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, for collected antidumping and countervailing duties under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, the Court of International Trade said in a series of three nearly-identical opinions. Judge Timothy Stanceu ruled that it must revert to step two of the Chevron analysis to rely on CBP's interpretation of how to administer the CDSOA and define how interest is earned on AD/CV duties. The court also held that given that the interest is put into a single sum after liquidation, it loses its "individual character" and is no longer interest earned on the duties.

The Court of International Trade in a June 15 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's final negative determination in the antidumping duty investigation on wood mouldings and millwork products from Brazil. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that Commerce properly combined exporters Araupel and Braslumber Industria de Molduras into a single entity and correctly didn't apply the major input rule to certain log purchases. Commerce was also right to revise Araupel's general and administrative expenses to account for fair value adjustments associated with the annual revaluation of standing trees in the company's unharvested forests, it said.

The Commerce Department erred by rejecting the Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment's surrogate data for ocean freight along with a host of inputs for mobile access equipment, the coalition said in a June 13 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The coalition argued that its own surrogate value data "more accurately reflected the inputs" used than the data Commerce did end up using (Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment v. United States, CIT #22-00152).

The Court of International Trade should rule in favor of importer Second Nature in its case challenging CBP classification of its imported dried botanicals, the importer said in a June 14 brief (Second Nature Designs Ltd. v. United States, CIT #17-00271). The importer asked the court for a summary judgment classifying all subject merchandise under subheading 0604.90.30 as dried or bleached, regardless of a subsequent dying and painting process, and reliquidating the entries duty-free.

Plaintiffs in an antidumping case failed to exhaust their administrative remedies when challenging the Commerce Department's decision to issue a questionnaire in lieu of on-site verification due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, the Court of International Trade ruled in a June 14 opinion. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the AD petitioner, Ellwood City Forge Co., had "multiple opportunities" to counter the verification methodology, but failed to do so administratively.

The Court of International Trade in a June 15 opinion sustained parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's remand results over the antidumping duty review of circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea. In the case's most recent remand, Commerce dropped a particular market situation adjustment to the cost of production for mandatory respondent Hyundai Steel but kept the adjustment to the other mandatory respondent Husteel's normal value when calculating non-examined respondent SeAH Steel's rate. In the opinion, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sustained the PMS adjustment drop for Hyundai but remanded the PMS adjustment as it pertains to SeAH's rate.

The Commerce Department properly found that electricity was not provided below cost in South Korea in a countervailing duty investigation, the Court of International Trade said in a June 13 opinion. Following a remand from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that both of the remanded issues -- Commerce's reliance on the preferential-rate standard and its failure to address the Korean Power Exchange's (KPX's) impact on the South Korean electricity market as rendering cost-recovery analysis -- now comply with the appellate court's ruling.