The Court of International Trade on July 12 upheld the Commerce Department's pick of Romania over Malaysia as a surrogate country in an antidumping case, but sent back to the agency the resulting financial ratio calculation of a Romanian company. Since Commerce failed to address the concerns of mandatory respondent Ancientree Cabinets, Judge Gary Katzmann directed Commerce to reconsider Ancientree's objections. Other aspects of the investigation under contention, namely the selection of Romania over Malaysia and Commerce's picks for product input surrogate values, were upheld by Katzmann.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in the fourth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from Korea, in a July 9 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett upheld the results after Commerce dropped its adverse inference against Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Hyosung Corporation when calculating their antidumping duty rate. The result left both respondents in the review with a zero percent duty rate.

In a pair of decisions, the Court of International Trade upheld two remand results that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty orders on steel nails from China and Vietnam. In one, CIT sustained the Commerce Department's third remand results that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from China, in a July 12 opinion. The decision applied recent precedent from a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether masonry anchors imported by OMG are subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel nails from Vietnam (see 2008280039). In another July 12 opinion, the court sustained Commerce remand results finding that Fastenal Company Purchasing's zinc and nylon anchors "do not fall within the scope of Commerce’s antidumping order on certain steel nails from China."

The Commerce Department filed its remand results in the Court of International Trade on July 12 in a case over the 2016-17 administrative review of the antdiumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea. The results mirror the redeterminations made in another case filed by the same company, SeAH Steel Co., in which Commerce dropped its finding of a particular market situation (see 2107010048). After the court said that there was not enough evidence to support the agency's finding that the Korean steel market was heavily subsidized and there was a global glut of key inputs for the oil tubes from China, Commerce no longer applied the PMS adjustment, but noted its disagreement with the court over how to weigh the evidence (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).

The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results of an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes from India, in a July 9 confidential opinion. Judge Claire Kelly subsequently issued a letter, stating her intention to have the public version of the opinion published “on or shortly after” July 19. Parties to the case are to review the confidential opinion and identify any confidential information to be bracketed for redaction in the public version. The case, according to the Jan. 30, 2020, complaint, concerned Commerce's use of a particular market situation to increase the cost of hot-rolled coil, the primary input, while computing the cost of the foreign like product in the below-cost analysis of home market sales for the Indian pipes and tubes (Garg Tube Export LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00026).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department was permitted to apply "facts otherwise available" in an antidumping duty investigation where it was unable to verify certain information due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Justice said in a July 2 brief to the Court of International Trade. Responding to plaintiffs, led by Bonney Forge Corp., DOJ said that the pandemic and travel restrictions prohibited Commerce from conducting on-site verifications during an investigation on forged steel fittings from India (Bonney Forge Corporation et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03837).

The Court of International Trade granted a consent motion July 9 to stay proceedings in a case brought by Advantus pending the appeal of decisions made in two cases, ARP Materials, Inc. v. United States and Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States. Judge Miller Baker granted the stay until 30 days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issues its mandates in those two cases. ARP and Harrison have not appealed to the Federal Circuit but indicated that they would like to do so (see 2106110053).

Commercial airline operator NetJets Aviation's lawsuit in the Court of International Trade over CBP's assessment of customs user fees on certain of its flights should be partially dismissed since NJA, in part, is claiming the wrong jurisdiction, the Department of Justice said. NJA challenged CBP's denial of its customs protest, filing its case under Section 1581(a) and 1581(i) in CIT, the latter being a challenge to agency action. Submitting a partial motion to dismiss on July 7, DOJ said that NJA's 1581(i) claim should be tossed since 1581(a) exists as the proper avenue of jurisdiction (NetJets Aviation, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00142).

The Commerce Department swapped the surrogate labor data it used to calculate normal value in an antidumping investigation after it reconsidered evidence showing signs of forced labor in Malaysia's electrical and electronics [E&E] sector, according to July 8 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. Finding that this forced labor unfairly skewed the labor costs for consideration as surrogate data, Commerce instead opted to use International Labor Comparisons data for Mexico in 2016 to determine the surrogate labor value (New American Keg v. United States, CIT #20-00008).