The Commerce Department's decision to compare two foreign manufacturers' production processes with integrated steel mills from China was unreasonable, Bruneian company HLDS (B) Steel and Philippine company HLD Clark Steel Pipe Co. told the Court of International Trade in a Jan. 24 complaint. Such a comparison -- used in a recent anti-circumvention inquiry -- was unreasonable since integrated steel mills make primary steel in many forms, not just oil country tubular goods -- the merchandise subject to the anti-circumvention inquiry, the complaint said (HLDS (B) Steel SDN BHD v. United States, CIT #21-00638).

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The Court of International Trade, in a confidential opinion, sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a case over the countervailing duty investigation of cold-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. Following litigation at CIT, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the trade court's ruling, ultimately finding that an alleged provision of electricity for less than adequate remuneration subsidy program failed to provide a benefit and thus, was not countervailable. On remand again at CIT, Commerce further laid out its rationale, concurrent with the Federal Circuit opinion, for finding that a benefit does not exist. Judge Mark Barnett told litigants in a Jan. 21 letter to review the decision for any potential confidential information in the opinion and to report back by Jan. 28 (POSCO v. United States, CIT Consol. #16-00225).

The Commerce Department did not adhere to the Court of International Trade's orders when it excluded importer Star Pipe Products' 11 ductile iron flanges from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China, U.S. producer ASC Engineered Solutions said in a Jan. 21 brief. The court did not instruct Commerce to exclude Star Pipe's flanges but rather to "conduct a more comprehensive review," which the agency failed to do. "Rather, the redetermination simply assumes, incorrectly, that a particular result had been directed by the Court," the brief said (Star Pipe Products v. United States, CIT #17-00236).

An antidumping duty respondent wrongly reported that two of its products had different sensitivity characteristics and thus should have been coded with the same control number (CONNUM), the ADD petitioners told the Court of International in a Jan. 21 complaint. Petitioners Appvion Operations and Domtar also said the Commerce Department should have used partial adverse facts available over the respondent's failure to adequately measure and report the static sensitivity of its thermal paper (Appvion Operations v. U.S., CIT #21-00634).

The Commerce Department violated the law when it found antidumping duty respondent Papierfabrik August Kohler's Blue4est developer-free paper to be within the scope of the AD duty order on thermal paper from Germany, the respondent told the Court of International Trade in a Jan. 21 complaint. Commerce, in its preliminary determination, found the Blue4est paper to be outside of the scope of the order but changed its decision in the final results. This decision wasn't based on a change in evidence but rather a "conclusory decision to ignore the limited scope of the term 'thermal paper' as defined in the petition," the respondent said (Koehler Paper SE v. U.S., CIT #21-00633).

The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results in the antidumping duty investigation of truck and bus tires from China in a Jan. 24 opinion. The two groups of plaintiffs are represented by two Chinese exporters, Guizhou Tyre and Double Coin Holdings. Judge Timothy Stanceu sent the case back to Commerce so the agency can reconsider its decision not to grant separate rate status to these plaintiffs along with its position that Guizhou failed to rebut the presumption of control by the Chinese government.

The Court of International Trade denied defendant-intervenors California Steel Industries' and Welspun Tubular's bid to stay an antidumping duty case concerning a particular market situation adjustment to a respondent's cost of production for the sales-below-cost test, in a Jan. 21 order. Since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit already ruled against the practice, Judge Claire Kelly said she couldn't be sure a stay would do anything more than just delay the proceedings of the case.

The Wind Tower Trade Coalition will appeal a December Court of International Trade decision that sustained the Commerce Department's decision to ultimately find no countervailable subsidization in a countervailing duty investigation of utility scale wind towers from Indonesia. The plaintiff and defendant-intervenor will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to the Jan. 20 notice of appeal. The trade court said that Commerce properly found that PT. Krakatau POSCO -- a joint venture between a private South Korean steel company and an Indonesian government-owned firm -- wasn't an authority nor directed by an authority and thus couldn't provide countervailable benefits (see 2112280046). The judge said that while the result of the case may be "disappointing" to the Wind Tower Trade Coalition, it represents a proper application of the law (PT. Kenertec Power System v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-03687).

The Commerce Department came back with remand results in a case on its antidumping duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany, relying on total cost of production for prime and non-prime merchandise in respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's books as facts otherwise available and revising the major input rule adjustment for Dillinger's coke inputs to reflect a contemporaneous comparison of coke consumption values and freight costs (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. United States, CIT Consol. #17-00158). Commerce also revised its adjustments to Dillinger's COP for inputs and services rendered to affiliates and gave a further explanation for its use of partial adverse facts available to respondent Salzgitter. The result was a 4.98% dumping rate for Dillinger, a 22.90% rate for Salzgitter and a 20.99% all-others rate, if the remand results are sustained.