The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results reversing the use of adverse facts available against exporter Oman Fasteners for filing submitted 16 minutes late. The result is a zero percent margin for the company as part of the sixth antidumping review on steel nails from Oman. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld Commerce's use of Oman Fasteners' quarterly costs and not annual costs in calculating the company's cost of production, as well as its decision not to deduct Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from the U.S. price for all of Oman's entries.
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 8 opinion rejected a motion from the U.S. seeking to retract the court's public opinion sustaining an affirmative injury finding from the International Trade Commission and to bracket information the government said was confidential. Touting the need for transparency in the court system, Judge Stephen Vaden said that the information the government sought to redact -- certain company names and numerical approximations -- is not confidential because the ITC failed to properly bracket it during litigation or the information is publicly available. The judge noted that neither "administrative agencies nor this Court can hide from scrutiny by censoring information," adding that only "truly confidential" information may be hidden from the public.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 29 sustained the Commerce Department's final results in the 2019-20 antidumping duty administrative review on lined paper products from India. Judge Stephen Vaden said that Commerce didn't commit a programming error by altering respondent Navneet Education's response to "YES" to the question of whether product characteristic information was provided. While Navneet didn't give the agency the physical characteristics of the goods in its cost database, Navneet did put the data in question on the record as part of its submissions to Commerce, the court noted.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 28 said action camera-maker GoPro's imports of eight camera housing models are properly classified under the company's proffered Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading of 8529.90.86, free of duty. This subheading provides for "[p]arts suitable for use solely or principally with the apparatus" of heading 8525. Judge Timothy Reif spent the bulk of the opinion discussing how the camera housings do not fit under the heading Customs used, 4202, which carries a 20% duty rate. Reif said the housings are not "cases" because they don't require the user to remove, modify or open to access the camera and because the housings boost the camera's functionality.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's use of total adverse facts available against antidumping respondent Saffron Living Co. after the company withdrew from the case on remand. Sustaining the 760% AD rate against the company in the investigation on mattresses from Thailand, Judge M. Miller Baker said the remand results are upheld since no remaining party contests the mark. The case was on remand so Commerce could attempt to verify data from Saffron, though this became impossible after Saffron withdrew from the proceeding.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 21 sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results in a case on an antidumping investigation into carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany. Judge Leo Gordon noted that the court already rejected exporter AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's argument that Commerce improperly rejected the company's proposed quality code for sour service pressure vessel plate, adding that Dillinger didn't properly show reconsideration of the issue is "appropriate." The judge also rejected petitioner Nucor's challenge to the adjustment to the model match methodology to include a separate quality code for sour transport plate in calculating Dillinger's margin.
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 19 opinion denied two quartz surface product exporters' bid to partially dissolve an existing injunction on liquidation after finding the companies did not make a "sufficient showing" for the motion. Concurrently, Judge Mark Barnett denied antidumping petitioner Cambria's motion for an injunction on liquidation, which was filed following the consolidation of its action with the exporters' suit so the relevant entries would be covered if the judge granted the motion to dissolve. Barnett denied Cambria's motion related to the entries for which liquidation is currently enjoined since he denied the motion to dissolve the injunction. The judge also denied Cambria's motion in relation to the entries not currently enjoined because the motion was untimely filed.
The Court of International Trade ruled Dec. 18 that the Commerce Department could use one antidumping mandatory respondent’s third-country sales to construct another’s profit, selling expenses and profit cap. In a case filed in May 2022 and voluntarily remanded to Commerce in June of this year, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves upheld Commerce’s use of SeAH Steel Corp.’s third-country sales in calculating a constructed export price for Hyundai Steel in a 2020 administrative review. She also upheld the agency's use of that export price in setting the AD duty for all non-individually examined respondents. The review had assigned a 19.54% AD duty for Hyundai, a 3.85% duty for SeAH and an 11.70% all-others rate.
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 19 opinion sustained the International Trade Commission's affirmative injury findings on mattresses from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. Judge Stephen Vaden said ITC's errors, which included "mathematical obfuscation and statistical chicanery" regarding claims that the mattress industry was more segmented than the commission believed, were harmless. Despite the errors, the commission "made the necessary findings to have its decision supported by substantial evidence," the opinion said.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 18 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the 2019-21 review of the antidumping duty order on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. In the remand results, Commerce continued to find that exporter Dalian Hualing Wood Co.'s lone U.S. sale during the review was not a bona fide sale, subjecting the company to the 251.65% China-wide AD rate. Judge Jane Restani said Commerce's results weren't "legally inconsistent" and the agency wasn't barred by statute or its past practice from conducting a bona fide analysis.