The Court of International Trade should not grant the Commerce Department's motion to extend the deadline to file remand results in an antidumping duty case, given the agency's mismanagement of the remand period, exporter SeAH Steel Corporation said in a March 24 brief. If the court does grant Commerce's motion, however, the time should only be extended for two business days plus one business hour -- the same time Commerce gave SeAH to file comments on the agency's remand. SeAH dubbed Commerce's conduct "egregious" and an expression of its "failure to consult in good faith" over the remand schedule (Stupp Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #15-00334).

U.S. steel manufacturer Maverick Tube lied to the Commerce Department when it objected to importer Maple Leaf Marketing's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests, MLM told the Court of International Trade in a March 18 brief. As such, Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security's decision to deny these requests cannot be sustained, MLM argued. It urged the trade court to remand the case so Commerce can add communications the agency had with a subject matter expert on whose word the exclusion requests were denied (Maple Leaf Marketing v. United States, CIT #20-00125).

DOJ is again arguing that it can file counterclaims in Court of International Trade classification cases -- even after more than four years into a case. Days after defending its counterclaim in another denied protest case involving importer Cyber Power (see 2203180042), DOJ is now arguing that delays by another importer in a separate case, Second Nature, allow it to bring a counterclaim despite the time elapsed (Second Nature Designs Ltd. v. United States, CIT #17-00271).

A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling is "critical" to an antidumping duty case brought by exporter SeAH Steel Corporation, defendant-intervenor U.S. Steel Corporation said in a March 21 notice of supplemental authority at the Court of International Trade. The recent Federal Circuit opinion held that the Commerce Department did not properly support its position that a particular market situation existed affecting inputs to oil country tubular goods from South Korea (see 2203110044). While the appellate court's decision upheld the trade court's ruling that the PMS determination was not justified, the court used different reasoning that U.S. Steel finds crucial to its case (SeAH Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT Consol. #19-00086).

The Court of International Trade sustained all of the Commerce Department's positions in a countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Canada, spurning a slew of litigants in the case ranging from the Canadian government to a U.S. wind tower trade group. In the March 18 opinion made public March 23, Judge Gary Katzmann sided with Commerce on all five issues under contention.

The Commerce Department failed to explain how a particular market situation existed for hot-rolled coil in the Indian market such that it affected antidumping duty respondents' costs of production, the Court of International Trade said in a March 11 opinion made public March 21. Judge Claire Kelly said that while Commerce identified market phenomena that could have distorted the price of HRC, the agency failed to show how the collective impact of these phenomena is unique to the Indian market and constitutes a PMS. Kelly also remanded Commerce's regression analysis used to adjust for the PMS, should the agency find that one still exists.

The Commerce Department properly picked an adverse facts available rate based on the financial data of one of the antidumping duty petitioner's parent companies in an AD investigation, the Court of International Trade said in a March 21 decision. Senior Judge Thomas Aquilino ruled that the arguments from plaintiffs Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon fall flat since they are based mainly on "their interpretation of outdated agency practices." The agency was not compelled to pick the highest AFA rate out there, the judge said.

U.S. steel company Nucor Corporation will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit a January Court of International Trade decision that held that no benefit was conferred on South Korean steel companies through the provision of electricity, according to the March 22 notice of appeal. The case has previously been to the Federal Circuit, where the appellate court remanded it for unlawfully relying on price discrimination instead of a thorough fair-market principles evaluation (see 2202020035). The trade court said that the Commerce Department has now addressed the Federal Circuit's concerns (POSCO v. United States, CIT #16-00225).

Processes performed on steel bars do not constitute "further working" for the purposes of tariff classification, meaning the steel bars are still classifiable in a tariff subheading subject to Section 232 tariffs, DOJ said in a brief filed March 21 at the Court of International Trade. Arguing in favor of its cross-motion for judgment, DOJ said that imported grinding rods from China are still classifiable under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 7228.40.00 as “Other bars and rods of other alloy steel … not further worked than forged." ME Global is seeking reclassification of the rods under the residual subheading 7326.11.00 as "other articles of iron or steel,” which are not subject to Section 232 tariffs (ME Global Inc. v. United States, CIT #19-00179).

DOJ on March 18 asked the Court of International Trade to step in and order an importer to post deposits or post a bond for its entries during a Section 232 tariff appeal, telling the court that it has been unable to reach an agreement with Oman Fasteners on how to secure its revenue should it prevail in an appeal of a Court of International Trade decision that invalidated Section 232 "derivatives" tariffs (Oman Fasteners, et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00037).