OFAC

The Commerce Department has released the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on large residential washers from Mexico (A-201-842). The agency calculated an AD rate of 2.02% for Electrolux Home Products Corp. N.V. and its affiliate Electrolux Home Products de Mexico, S.A. de C.V., the only company under review. Any changes to Electrolux's cash deposit rate would take effect on the publication date of the final results of this review in the Federal Register, currently due in July. As it currently stands, once it issues the final results, the agency would instruct CBP to liquidate entries from Electrolux entered Feb. 1, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2021, at importer-specific rates.

The Commerce Department has released the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on common alloy aluminum sheet from Croatia (A-891-001). The agency said both companies under review, Impol d.o.o. and Impol TLM d.o.o. (collectively, Impol), made sales of subject merchandise at less than normal value during the period of review Oct. 15, 2020, through March 31, 2022, and assigned an AD rate of 2.37%. If these preliminary results are adopted unchanged, Commerce will in its final results assess AD at importer-specific rates for subject merchandise from Impol entered Oct. 15, 2020, through March 31, 2022. A cash deposit rate of 2.37% would take effect for Impol upon publication of the final results in the Federal Register.

The Commerce Department will soon suspend liquidation and impose countervailing duty cash deposit requirements on imports of freight rail couplers from China, it said in a fact sheet issued Feb. 28. Commerce set a CVD rate of 265.99% for all Chinese exporters, the agency said as it announced its preliminary determinations in its ongoing CVD investigations. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will take effect for entries on or after the date of publication of the preliminary determinations in the Federal Register, which should occur in the coming days.

T-Mobile seeks to cloak its "private concern” with a change to California USF “in the language of equity and solicitude for low-income Californians,” the California Public Utilities Commission said Monday at the U.S. District Court of Northern California. T-Mobile and subsidiaries seek a preliminary injunction to stop the CPUC’s October decision to switch to connections-based contribution from taking effect April 1 (see 2302020058). Opposing that motion in case 3:23-cv-00483, the CPUC said T-Mobile lacks standing and fails to show California’s connection-based surcharge violates federal law.

The Court of International Trade rejected the Commerce Department's imposition of a total adverse facts available rate of 154.33% on antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners as the result of one 16-minutes-late submission, in a Feb. 15 opinion made public Feb. 27. Judge M. Miller Baker said the lawsuit was "not a close case," blasting Commerce's inadequate explanation for why one late submission due to a filing difficulty was enough to conclude that Oman Fasteners failed to cooperate to the best of its ability or why the company deserved the punitive rate.

The Commerce Department is finalizing its determination not to impose antidumping duties on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes made in Oman and the United Arab Emirates from Indian hot-rolled steel, it said in a notice released Feb. 28. The agency said in the final determinations of two anti-circumvention inquiries that imports of the merchandise are not circumventing AD/CVD on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes from India (A-533-502). Commerce also found no circumvention in its preliminary determination, so no suspension of liquidation or cash deposit requirements have been imposed as a result of the inquiry (see 2208250055).

California’s age-appropriate social media design law should be thrown out because it’s preempted by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) (see 2212140063 and 2301310034), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the U.S. District Court for Northern California in an amicus brief Friday in support of NetChoice (docket 5:22-cv-08861).

DirecTV and the defendants it alleges are impersonating DirecTV telemarketers and making off with consumers’ money estimate that jury selection and a five-day trial in the case should begin by Feb. 20, they said in a joint preliminary report and proposed scheduling order Thursday (docket 6:22-cv-00423) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler. The defendants deny all the allegations, said the report. The parties contemplate needing about eight months, through Oct. 20, to do discovery, it said. It’s “likely” DirecTV will need to do discovery with entities outside the U.S. “If discovery is stymied it could take longer to complete,” said the report. DirecTV landed authorization Feb. 15 from a magistrate judge to effect service of process of its fraud complaint on defendant Motasim Billah via Facebook and LinkedIn because he's believed to be living in Lahore, Pakistan, with an exact address unknown (see 2302160055). Based on the number of parties sued and third-parties involved, DirecTV requests that it be permitted 20 depositions during discovery, said the report. The parties “are open to mediation” before a magistrate judge “after limited discovery,” it said. They discussed a settlement, “but have not reached agreement on any material terms,” it said.

Imports of dual-piston engines with a single combustion chamber are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc from China (A-570-124/C-570-125), the Commerce Department said in the final determination of an anti-circumvention inquiry released Feb. 27.

A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted to CBP's website Feb. 24, 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.