The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia covering entries in 2016-2017, in a Nov. 30 confidential opinion. The case, filed by mandatory respondent BlueScope Steel Ltd., challenged the final results for hitting BlueScope with adverse facts available. The seven-count action alleged, among other things, that Commerce's decision to apply AFA based on the fact that BlueScope withheld requested information is contradicted by record evidence. In a letter submitted to the litigants, Judge Richard Eaton said he wants bracketed information reviewed by Dec. 7 (BlueScope Steel Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00057).

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The Commerce Department must reconsider its use of an adverse inference in an antidumping review on Italian pasta since it failed to find out whether a respondent did not to cooperate to the best of its ability, the Court of International Trade said in a Nov. 30 opinion. However, the court upheld the remaining elements of the decision, including Commerce's use of facts available and the agency's rejection of the respondent's post-verification arguments for different classification systems for the pasta's protein content and shape.

Royal Brush Manufacturing, Inc. will appeal an October Court of International Trade opinion that upheld CBP's finding that it evaded antidumping duties on cased pencils from China, according to a Nov. 29 notice of appeal. The pencil importer will appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. CIT originally remanded the case to CBP after finding that the customs agency did not provide adequate public summaries of business confidential information during the evasion investigation. Chief Judge Mark Barnett then upheld the evasion determination after finding that CBP cleared this hurdle and that the summaries did not violate Royal Brush's due process rights (see 2111010036) (Royal Brush Manufacturing, Inc. v. United States, CIT #19-00198).

Surety company American Home Assurance Company wants a stay in its case, brought by the U.S., in which the government is seeking to collect antidumping duties on entries of canned mushrooms from China brought in between 2000 and 2001, according to its Nov. 26 motion at the Court of International Trade. Filed without consent from the Department of Justice, AHAC wants all proceedings halted in the lawsuit until the court renders a judgment in a similar case, United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Company, currently pending before Judge Stephen Vaden (United States v. American Home Assurance Company, CIT #20-00175).

The Commerce Department erred by including both research and development expenses for non-subject goods and "compensation for payment" expenses for non-subject merchandise in the general and administrative (G&A) expense calculation during an antidumping duty review, exporter Nagase and Co. said in a Nov. 24 complaint. Filing its case at the Court of International Trade, Nagase also pushed back against the Commerce Department's calculation of the assessment rate (Nagase & Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00574).

Since a steel importer's and purchaser's bid to reliquidate two entries subject to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs is virtually identical to its already dismissed action seeking the same thing, it should be dismissed, the Department of Justice argued in a Nov. 24 brief at the Court of International Trade. The new case, brought by the importer, Voestalpine USA, and the purchaser, Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel, which challenges the Commerce Department's Section 232 exclusion, is "legally indistinguishable" from its prior case, and, as such, is moot, the U.S. said (Voestalpine USA Corp., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00290).

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 30 remanded the Commerce Department's final results in the 2017-2018 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain pasta from Italy giving the agency another shot at explaining its adverse inference application. In the review, affiliated plaintiffs Ghigi 1870 and Pasta Zara served as a mandatory respondent. Due to a programming error, Ghigi/Zara revealed during the post-verification stage that its most recent U.S. sales dates were errant. Instead of reverting back to the old U.S. sales dates, Commerce hit Ghigi//Zara with adverse facts available. The court upheld the use of facts available but not the adverse inference. The court also upheld Commerce's rejection of Ghigi/Zara's post-verification arguments for different classification systems for the pasta's protein content and shape.

The Court of International Trade illegally substituted its judgment for the Commerce Department's when it found that the application of total adverse facts available was not backed by substantial evidence, antidumping duty petitioner and defendant-appellant ABB Enterprise Software argued in its Nov. 22 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The CIT wrongly held that Commerce impermissibly speculated when finding that an antidumping duty respondent's reporting error backed disregarding the respondent's entire U.S. and home market databases, ABB said (Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems, fka Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2312).

Three defendant-appellants of an antidumping case -- Atlas Tube, Searing Industries and Nucor Tubular Products -- filed a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 22 to defend the Commerce Department's particular market situation adjustment in the sales-below-cost test when calculating normal value (Dong-A Steel Company, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2153).