The Court of International Trade on Sept. 17 sent back the Commerce Department's use of a quarterly cost methodology to analyze exporter Officine Tecnosider's sales during the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on steel plate from Italy to address "shortcomings" in its analysis.

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 18 sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand to use a weighted average to set the antidumping rate for the non-individually examined respondents in the 2016-17 review of the AD order on multilayered wood flooring from China. The agency weight averaged the zero and adverse facts available rates given to the two mandatory respondents. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce "followed the court's instructions on remand" by using a weighted average, which represents the "expected method" for determining the separate rate. The result was a 31.63% AD rate for the companies -- down from the original 42.57%.

The Court of International Trade will be closed Nov. 29 as part of its observation of Thanksgiving. Judge Mark Barnett made the announcement in an order on Sept. 13. Thanksgiving is Thursday, Nov. 28.

Importer New York Mutual Trading dismissed its customs case at the Court of International Trade on Sept. 16. The company brought the suit in 2022 to contest CBP's denial of its protest claiming its frozen shrimp from Vietnam of Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 1605.21.1030 had wrongly been assigned the "all others" antidumping duty rate. Counsel for the importer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment (New York Mutual Trading v. U.S., CIT # 22-00293).

A plaintiff opposed Sept. 13 a CBP redetermination upon remand that again found three importers evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese plywood by transshipping the product through Cambodia (see 2405300058), again arguing the agency’s decision lacked substantial evidence (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 20-03914).

The U.S. on Sept. 13 defended the Commerce Department's remand determination that the Korean government's full allotment of carbon emissions credits to exporter Hyundai Steel Co. is de jure specific. The government said Hyundai's claims that the Court of International Trade already rejected Commerce's reasoning and that the agency ignored the court's questions in the remand were unconvincing (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00029) (Dongkuk Steel Mill Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00032).

A group of cabinet importers, led by ACProducts, filed a pair of complaints at the Court of International Trade on Sept. 16 contesting the Commerce Department's final scope rulings on wooden cabinets further processed in Vietnam and Malaysia. The six-count complaints contested Commerce's decision to open the inquiries and claimed that the scope rulings expanded the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on wooden cabinets from China beyond their plain-language scope to include "semi-finished components" (ACProducts v. United States, CIT #'s 24-00155, -00156).

The U.S. “respectfully disagree[d]” with recent Court of International Trade cases that have held that the government cannot hear counterclaims seeking to reclassify products under a new heading. These holdings, it said Sept. 13, go against 28 U.S.C. Section 1583, “its legislative history, and decades of consistent practice immediately following its enactment” (BASF Corp. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 13-00318).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 17 remanded the Commerce Department's decision to use a quarterly cost methodology to analyze exporter Officine Tecnosider's sales in the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on steel plate from Italy. Judge Stephen Vaden said the agency failed to grapple with various "shortcomings" in its decision, including Commerce's sole focus on Italian sales as a "reliable indicator of linkage for U.S. sales." Vaden also questioned why the agency didn't follow its precedent in analyzing products jointly sold in both the U.S. and home markets and found that Commerce didn't adequately explain how it analyzed the data to see if there was "proper linkage between the cost of manufacturing and the sales price."

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: