Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) waited only until the first court date of 2024 to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court the district court’s Nov. 30 granting of a preliminary injunction blocking him from enforcing SB-419, Montana’s statewide TikTok ban, when it took effect Jan. 1 (see 2312010003), said Knudsen’s notice of appeal Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula. The plaintiffs in two consolidated cases, including multiple TikTok users (docket 9:23-cv-00056), plus TikTok itself (docket 9:23-cv-00061), argued that SB-419 violates the First Amendment and the Constitution’s supremacy and commerce clauses. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s opinion and order held that the plaintiffs “have shown a likelihood of success as to the merits of each claim,” and that a preliminary injunction on the effective date of SB-419 was “warranted.” Despite the injunction, Knudsen’s office said it was looking forward “to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”
The Commerce Department has published the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules, from China (A-570-979). In the final results of this review, Commerce will set assessment rates for subject merchandise from the 33 companies under review entered December 2021 through November 2022.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 3, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
U.S. solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy launched a lawsuit at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 29 to contest the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from Southeast Asian found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these products from China (Auxin Solar v. U.S., CIT # 23-00274).
Companies, labor unions and domestic producer coalitions that support antidumping and countervailing duties on Vietnamese exports all said Vietnam has not changed its practices enough to be considered a market economy in AD/CVD cases in the 21 years since the last evaluation of its status found it wasn't.
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register Jan. 3 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department released the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on utility scale wind towers from Malaysia (A-557-821), calculating a 25.92% AD rate for CS Wind Malaysia Sdn Bhd and its parent company, CS Wind Corp., the lone mandatory respondent in this review.
The Commerce Department published the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on prestressed concrete steel wire strand from Malaysia (A-557-819). The agency modified its preliminary calculation method, based on comments received, but the final results didn't change the zero percent AD rate determined in the preliminary results for all four companies under review: Kiswire Sdn. Bhd.; Wei Dat Steel Wire Sdn. Bhd.; Southern Steel Sdn. Bhd.; and Southern PC Steel Sdn. Bhd. Commerce will liquidate entries from the four companies during the period Nov. 19, 2020, through May 31, 2022, without regard to AD, and future entries from the four won't be subject to an AD cash deposit requirement until further notice. The new rates take effect Jan. 3.
The Commerce Department has released the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on chlorinated isocyanurates from China (A-570-898). These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD duties on two importers for subject merchandise entered June 1, 2021, through May 31, 2022.
The Commerce Department made preliminary affirmative antidumping duty determinations that imports of paper shopping bags from Cambodia (A-555-002), China (A-570-152), Colombia (A-301-805), India (A-533-917), Malaysia (A-557-825), Portugal (A-471-808), Taiwan (A-583-872), Turkey (A-489-849) and Vietnam (A-552-836), are being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value. The agency will generally impose AD cash deposit requirements on entries of subject merchandise beginning on Jan. 3, 2024, though cash deposit requirements take effect retroactively for all Vietnamese companies, and some Cambodian, Taiwanese and Chinese companies, beginning on Oct. 5, 2023.