The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit owes no deference to CBP's procedures in an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion investigation since those procedures violated importer Royal Brush Manufacturing's due process rights, the importer argued in a June 30 reply brief. Royal Brush also argued that CBP's decision to not give the importer access to business confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding is a problem of CBP's own creation, and that the U.S. offers insufficient defenses of the company's constitutional due process claims (Royal Brush Manufacturing Inc. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1226).

Exporter SeAH Steel Corp. should not be allowed to intervene in an antidumping duty case at the Court of International Trade since the court's ruling in the matter "would have no effect on its entries," the U.S. argued in a June 30 reply brief. SeAH only seeks to join the case, initially brought by Hyundai Steel Co., to potentially use the opinion as precedent in a later proceeding from a subsequent administrative review, DOJ said. This rationale does not clear the court's bar for establishing standing as an intervening party, the U.S. argued (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #22-00138).

The Court of International Trade should not allow the Commerce Department to apply the highest dumping margin possible by picking only one mandatory respondent in a "weight-averaging situation," plaintiffs, led by Kisaan Die Tech Private, argued in a June 30 motion for judgment. The highest possible rate of the one respondent, determined using adverse facts available, is not reflective of the cooperating respondents' dumping margin, and thus not backed by evidence or law, the plaintiffs said (Kisaan Die Tech Private Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #21-00512).

The Commerce Department erred by finding that Krakatau POSCO -- a joint venture between a private South Korean steel company and an Indonesian government-owned firm -- was not a government authority, leading Commerce to find its provision of cut-to-length steel plate below cost was not countervailable, the Wind Tower Trade Coalition said. Arguing against the U.S. and exporter Kenertec Power System, the coalition said in a June 29 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that by making its decision, the agency "elevated form over substance, frustrated the intent of the CVD law, and allowed Indonesia's wind tower producer to receive subsidies and escape duties" (PT. Kenertec Power System v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-03687).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate June 28 in a case on the tariff classification of tobacco wraps. In its May decision, the appellate court affirmed the Court of International Trade's ruling, which allowed into evidence the results of a particular customs test used to weigh the tobacco wraps. Importer New Image Global filed the case to fight for a lower excise tax on its tobacco wraps, which were classified as roll-your-own tobacco, subjecting them to the excise tax (New Image Global v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #19-2444).

The Court of International Trade in a June 28 order consolidated four antidumping duty cases concerning whether the Commerce Department can use one antidumping mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit. The cases, brought by lead plaintiffs Hyundai Steel Co., AJU Besteel Co., Nexteel Co. and Husteel Co., all challenge the same final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea.

The Court of International Trade should rule that all 14 frozen fruit mixtures imported into the U.S. from Canada by Nature's Touch are properly classified under duty-free subheading 2106.90.98 as “Food preparations not elsewhere specified or included,” Nature's Touch said in a June 27 brief in support of its April 18 motion for summary judgment (see 2204190052) (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West). v. U.S., CIT #20-00131).

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Antidumping duty petitioner Wheatland Tube Co. wants one of its appeals of an antidumping duty case over whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test dismissed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but says one other appeal should be kept alive. Filing a motion for voluntary dismissal, Wheatland said that its case was held in abeyance pending an appeal of the key case, Hyundai Steel Co v. U.S., to the Supreme Court, in which the Federal Circuit said that Commerce cannot make a PMS adjustment to the sales-below-cost test (see 2112100039). Since no writ of certiorari was filed to the nation's highest court by Wheatland in the Hyundai Steel case, the court should toss the present appeal, the petitioner argued.

Importer Prime Time Commerce 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 dumping margin for the importer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a June 28 opinion. Sustaining the Court of International Trade, Judges Alan Lourie, Haldane Mayer and Tiffany Cunningham also 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.