The U.S. defended its use of profit before tax in its calculation of a Russian phosphate fertilizer export company’s less-than-adequate-remuneration government subsidy, saying it was the most accurate method of calculation. It also said the Commerce Department’s countervailing duty on the exports fulfilled all the requirements of the Court of International Trade upon its second remand (The Mosaic Company v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00117).
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 18 upheld the Commerce Department's use of a 0.8 threshold for Cohen's d test to analyze masked dumping, finding Commerce's explanation for the methodology reasonable.
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The Court of International Trade ruled Dec. 18 that Commerce could use one antidumping duty review mandatory respondent’s third-country sales to calculate another’s AD when no better information was available. The opinion comes at the end of a long CIT case challenging the Commerce Department’s 2020 administrative review of the AD order on certain oil county tubular goods (OCTG) from Korea, filed by plaintiff Hyundai Steel in May 2022 (see 2205100033).
The Commerce Department didn't meaningfully respond to arguments regarding the specificity of the provision of Korean Allowance Units (KAUs) by the South Korean government's cap-and-trade system in a countervailing duty review, the Court of International Trade ruled on Dec. 18.
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.
No lawsuits have been filed recently at the Court of International Trade.
A domestic antidumping duty petitioner challenged intervention of more companies in another ongoing case over a 2021 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on Canadian softwood lumber products (Resolute FP Canada Inc. v. United States, CIT # 23-00206).
The Commerce Department "did not err" when it found exporter Dalian Hualing Wood Co.'s lone U.S. sale was bona fide in a countervailing duty review but not bona fine in the antidumping duty review on the same goods, the Court of International Trade ruled on Dec. 18. Sustaining a 251.65% China-wide AD rate on Hualing's lone sale in the 2019-21 AD review of wooden cabinets and vanities from China, Judge Jane Restani said nothing in the new shipper review statute, nor any other statute, "compels Commerce to reach the same conclusion in distinct administrative proceedings, even if based upon the same sale."
The U.S. said in a Dec. 15 motion to dismiss that CBP has discretion in deciding how to pursue investigations on forced labor allegations, including how long those investigations may take, how much information CBP will reveal and whether action will be taken at all (International Rights Advocates v. Alejandro Mayorkas, CIT # 23-00165).