A South Korean exporter of certain corrosion-resistant steel products filed another complaint March 19 in the Court of International Trade saying that a 2014 to 2018 debt-to-equity restructuring led by the Korean government assisted its previous owners, not its current ones (KG Dongbu Steel Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00056).

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Proposed intervenors in a lawsuit challenging the Commerce Department's antidumping and countervailing duty pause on Southeast Asian solar panels further defended their motion to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, claiming that solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy wrongly characterize the suit as being a Section 1581(i) action (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).

The Court of International Trade on March 20 sustained the International Trade Commission's decision not to cumulate goods from Brazil with other countries that are part of the five-year sunset review of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on cold-rolled steel flat products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. Judge Gary Katzmann held that the commission's analysis didn't "engage in impermissibly 'circular' reasoning," the ITC's treatment of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs didn't impermissibly depart from past agency practice and the commission appropriately explained its decision not to cumulate Brazil's goods.

The Court of International Trade in a decision made public March 19 sent back the Commerce Department's decision to grant respondent Gujarat Fluorochemicals a constructed export price offset in the antidumping duty investigation on granular polytetrafluorethylene resin from India, despite finding that the company failed to establish the amount and nature of the offset.

An exporter argued March 6 to the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department failed to justify allocating one of the exporter’s expenses across the entire period of review instead of on a more specific monthly basis. The department is required to use an allocation method that is as specific as possible, it said (Sahamitr Pressure Container PLC v. U.S., CIT # 22-0107).

In a March 18 brief supporting a Jan. 24 motion to dismiss (see 2401230040), the U.S. again argued in a case involving the antidumping and countervailing duty pause on Southeast Asian solar panels that the Court of International Trade lacks jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i) because it “is, or could have been” available under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(c) (Auxin Solar v. U.S., CIT # 23-00274).

The Court of International Trade on March 18 said that the U.S. waited too long to send surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. a bill for an unpaid customs bond on Chinese garlic imports that entered in 2004. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the government's eight-year delay in demanding the payment from Aegis "was unreasonable and a breach of contract." The court said the delay broke the "reasonable time requirement" -- an "implied contractual term."

Exporter PT. Zinus Global Indonesia on March 14 dismissed its lawsuit at the Court of International Trade challenging the 2020-22 review of the antidumping duty order on mattresses from Indonesia. The exporter filed the complaint in the case last month, contesting the Commerce Department's constructed value profit and selling expense ratios, treatment of B grade mattress sales as U.S. sales and differential pricing analysis. No reason was provided as to the suit's dismissal (PT. Zinus Global Indonesia v. United States, CIT # 24-00004).

After the Commerce Department undertook a court-ordered on-site verification visit for an Indian forged steel fluid end block exporter due to a petitioner’s lawsuit, the petitioner responded in comments March 8 saying that the visit stirred up new inconsistencies that Commerce should have taken into consideration when calculating the exporter’s antidumping duty rate (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00007).