The Court of International Trade remanded two Commerce Department scope rulings on an antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China in separate challenges. In one case, brought by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce misinterpreted evidence from the International Trade Commission on whether Crane's flanges are subject to the order. In the other case, brought by Star Pipe Products, Stanceu said that Commerce did not consider all the relevant evidence when finding that Star Pipe's flanges are covered by AD duties.
Court of International Trade activity
Steel importer Transpacific Steel, along with several Turkish steel makers, wants a full court rehearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit of a panel decision to uphold President Donald Trump's Section 232 tariff hike on Turkish steel. In an Aug. 23 petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc, Transpacific argued that the panel's majority failed to impose the congressionally mandated limitations to the president's power in Section 232. Further, the majority improperly rejected the plaintiff appellees' equal protection claims, the petition said (Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #20-2157).
The Commerce Department can’t deny a Dominican aluminum extrusions exporter’s scope ruling request on the basis that CBP has already ruled on the merchandise in an Enforce and Protect Act evasion investigation, the exporter, Kingtom Aluminum, said in a letter filed with Commerce in early August.
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Industrias Negromex and Dynasol, Mexican exporters of emulsion styrene-butadiene rubber (ESBR), are challenging the Commerce Department's rejection of questionnaire responses in an antidumping duty administrative review on ESBR from Mexico, according to an Aug. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's rejection of Negromex's corrective model matching information, whether considered a corrective filing or new factual information, constitutes an unlawful rejection of factual information and a failure to calculate an accurate dumping margin, the complaint said (Industrias Negromex, S.A. de C.V., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00495).
The Commerce Department properly used the expected method in an antidumping duty administrative review when it averaged two adverse facts available rates to apply to the non-individually examined respondents, the Department of Justice argued in an Aug. 16 filing at the Court of International Trade. Due to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, Albemarle Corp. & Subsidiaries v. United States, which held that the antidumping duty rate for mandatory respondents should be found to be representative unless enough evidence shows otherwise, Commerce properly used the expected method to find the non-individually examined respondents' rate, it said (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).
The Department of Justice, in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade initially filed by Fine Furniture (Shanghai), requested CIT sustain the Commerce Department's remand results, in Aug. 24 comments. The case stems from an antidumping duty administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Following multiple court decisions and remand results (see 2107130080), Fine Furniture's case was stayed pending a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which eventually found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping duty order. Since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD duty order received de minimis rates in Commerce's final determination, Fine Furniture was removed from the review. This led to the AD duty rate for all separate rate respondents falling to zero percent (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #14-00135). Most recently, the plaintiffs all signed off on the remand results, leaving no party to challenge the redetermination and nothing further to resolve in the litigation (see 2108110023).
The Commerce Department did not violate the law when it included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited (PESL) in an antidumping investigation, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 25 order. Judge Leo Gordon said that there is nothing in the statute that requires Commerce to perform a bona fide sales analysis on paid U.S. sample sales during an investigation. "It should go without saying that, without a legal requirement that Commerce perform such an analysis, there is no basis for the court to issue an affirmative injunction that Commerce must conduct a bona fide sales analysis on PESL’s paid U.S. sample sales," the judge said.
Plaintiff Nucor Corporation mischaracterized, oversimplified and took the Commerce Department's remand results out of context in its comments on a submission in a case stemming from the agency's countervailing duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from South Korea, the Department of Justice said in Aug. 18 comments at the Court of International Trade, backing the remand redetermination. DOJ continued to back Commerce's contention that the South Korean government did not provide a countervailable subsidy to producers of hot-rolled steel through cheap electricity. Contrary to what Nucor's comments assert, Commerce adhered to the statute when completing its less-than-adequate remuneration analysis in the CVD case and properly accounted for the Korean Power Exchange's role in the electricity market, DOJ said (POSCO, et al. v. U.S., CIT #16-00227).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: