The Court of International Trade on Oct. 11 remanded the antidumping duty investigation on wind towers from Spain for the second time. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that after individually investigating exporter Siemens Gamesa on the first remand, Commerce illegally levied a 73% adverse facts available rate on the company after collapsing it with affiliated supplier Windar Renovables and five of Windar's subsidiaries. Commerce unlawfully relied on the conclusion that the 73% AFA rate on Windar set in the original AD investigation was final and controlling and improperly used AFA on Siemens Gamesa given the record evidence, Stanceu said.

The Commerce Department's determination on remand that a German fee exemption program was de jure specific and could be countervailed was correct and should be sustained by the Court of International Trade, DOJ said in its Oct. 6 remand comments. In its August remand results, Commerce stuck with its previous finding in the countervailing duty investigation on forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany (see 2308070053) (BGH Edelstahl Siegen v. U.S., CIT # 21-00080).

The Commerce Department incorrectly calculated dumping rates for Canadian lumber exporters and used those "tainted" margins to calculate rates for other companies, a coalition including the governments of Canada and Quebec said in an Oct. 6 complaint to the Court of International Trade. The case is yet another involving the alleged misapplication of the Cohen's d test in Commerce's differential pricing methodology (Government of Canada, et al. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00187).

Four Canadian lumber exporters, along with their cross-owned affiliates, referred to as the "Originally Excluded Parties," asked the Court of International Trade to relieve them from the effects of a court order reinstating the countervailing duty order on softwood lumber products from Canada. The originally excluded parties said the order was based on an earlier judgment, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, concerning the legal ground for conducting expedited CVD reviews, meaning that the trade court should restore "the status quo ante that existed prior" to the order for the remainder of the case (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00122).

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 10 order granted a U.S. consent request for a remand to reconsider the Commerce Department's decision to deny LE Commodities' 14 requests for exclusions from paying Section 232 duties on specialty steel products. The government said in its motion for remand that it will either grant the requests and exclude the product from the scope of the steel and aluminum duties, deny the requests or "some combination of both" (LE Commodities v. U.S., CIT # 22-00245).

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The U.S. must further explain its decision not to add certain documents to the record in a case on the National Marine Fisheries Service's rejection of importer Southern Cross Seafoods' application for preapproval to import Chilean sea bass, the Court of International Trade ruled. Judge Timothy Reif said in an Oct. 5 opinion made public Oct. 10 that the government must address inconsistencies in its reasons for not including information showing how the NMFS obtained outside legal opinions included in the administrative record and information identifying who authored a relevant legal opinion.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's fifth remand redetermination of the antidumping duty investigation of hardwood plywood products from China, according to an Oct. 10 opinion. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sustained Commerce's separate rate along with its decisions to exclude Jiangyang Wood and Dehua TB, and to include Sanfortune Wood and Longyuan Wood within the order.

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 11 opinion partially sustained and partially remanded the Commerce Department's eighth review of the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China. Judge Jane Restani granted the U.S. request for a remand regarding China's Export Buyer's Credit Program and the datasets used to set a benchmark for ocean freight. The court also sent back Commerce's use of a 2010 Thai Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis report in setting the land value benchmark and its de jure specificity finding regarding benefits received from a program that makes income from investment gains derived by a resident enterprise via direct investment in another resident enterprise tax exempt. Restani upheld Commerce's 2017 benefit finding regarding land leases, which was left to coexist in the present review period.

The Court of International Trade set a briefing schedule in a case on the antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Thailand following the departure of respondent Saffron Living Co. from the case. Plaintiffs, led by U.S. company Brooklyn Bedding, are to compile and serve their soft appendix within seven days of the Oct. 6 order and then are to file their comments on the Commerce Department's remand results within seven days of the appendix being filed. The U.S. will file its response no later than 15 days after the remand comments (Brooklyn Bedding v. U.S., CIT # 21-00285).