German exporter AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke will appeal a December Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany. The company will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where it will contest the decision to uphold Commerce's proposed quality code for sour service pressure vessel plate (see 2312210054). The court said Dillinger didn't make the "requisite showing to demonstrate that reconsideration is appropriate" after the court already rejected the claim (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. United States, CIT # 17-00158).
Court of International Trade activity
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 confidential order sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's findings in an antidumping duty proceeding on thermal paper from Germany. In a letter, Judge Gary Katzmann gave the litigants until Feb. 12 to review the confidential information in the opinion ahead of issuing the public version of the decision (Mantra Americas v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00632).
The Commerce Department on Feb. 12 found on remand, and under protest, that a German subsidy was not de jure specific to an exporter of forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany (BGH Edelstahl Siegen v. U.S., CIT # 21-00080).
The statutory basis for the U.S. trade representative's lists 3 and 4A tariffs -- Section 307 of the Trade Act of 1930 -- only allows for a "modification" of existing duties and not a "radical and unprecedented seven-fold escalation launching an unbounded trade war with China," appellants in the massive lawsuit challenging the Section 301 tariffs on China told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 12 (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 opinion made public Feb. 13 remanded some aspects of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on thermal paper from Germany. Judge Gary Katzmann sent back the coding of the static sensitivity product characteristic, classification of Koehler's accrued interest expenses as a cost of production and the use of the Cohen's d test to root out "masked" dumping, staying the case until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issues a decision in Stupp Corp. v. U.S. He sustained Commerce's inclusion of exporter Koehler Paper's "Blue4est" paper product within the scope of the investigation, the agency's coding of the dynamic sensitivity product characteristic and application of price adjustments for some home market rebates.
A citric acid exporter said Feb. 9 that the Commerce Department had been wrong to refuse to do a quarterly analysis of the exporter’s costs, even though it had faced large cost fluctuations due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Citribel N.V. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00010).
Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden on Feb. 12 recused himself from a pair of cases in which Nicholas Phillips, associate at Schagrin Associates, appeared for one of the parties after he was working as a law clerk for Vaden while the case was pending (Asia Wheel Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 23-00096) (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. United States, CIT # 23-00140).
While the U.S. remained neutral, a steel nail exporter on Feb. 8 called “moot” a petitioner’s motion to stay one antidumping duty appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit until the petitioner’s other interlocutory appeal had been heard (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1350).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Feb. 12 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to use a simple average of standard deviations in the denominator of the Cohen's d test in detecting "masked" dumping as part of the antidumping investigation on steel nails from Taiwan. Despite a pair of decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejecting the use of simple averages in this case, Judge Claire Kelly said she could find no fault with the logic Commerce employed.