The Commerce Department improperly used only one mandatory respondent in an antidumping duty investigation, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Feb. 16 opinion. Citing a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling that held Commerce may not use just one respondent where multiple exporters have requested a review, Judge Timothy Stanceu sent back the agency's respondent selection decision. The judge also blasted Commerce's use of an adverse facts available rate, taken from the petitioner after the one respondent backed out of the investigation, which the agency used for the non-individually selected respondents and the all-others rate.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 17 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 15 confidential opinion granted exporter Oman Fasteners' motion for a preliminary injunction in an antidumping case, enjoining the U.S. from "taking any action to enforce, implement, or execute" the duties set by the Commerce Department on steel nails from Oman. Judge M. Miller Baker also barred CBP from collecting AD duty cash deposits on the nails after Oman Fasteners argued that the 154.33% adverse facts available rate set as the cash deposit mark would bankrupt the company (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT # 22-00348).
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register Feb. 16 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 has released the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on hardwood plywood products from China (A-570-051). These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD rates on importers for subject merchandise entered during calendar year 2021. New cash deposit rates set in these final results take effect Feb. 17.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Feb. 16 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Office of Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) opposes Smartbiz Telecom’s Feb. 3 motion to stay discovery in the state’s robocall complaint against the defendant (see 2302060033) “because it will create case management problems and is not justified in fact or law,” said its opposition Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-23945) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Miami. Smartbiz requests a stay of “indefinite length” until the court has ruled on its motion to dismiss, it said. But that motion “is unlikely to be dispositive and does not warrant delaying discovery in this case,” it said. Smartbiz’s assertions the AG’s discovery requests are overly broad and unduly burdensome -- one of the bases of the defendant’s motion to stay -- are “without factual support,” said the opposition. These objections “can be efficiently litigated during the pendency” of the motion to dismiss, “and do not present a reason to stay this case,” it said. "The existence of a dispositive motion may weigh in favor of a stay, but there is no rule requiring a stay while such a motion is pending," said the AG. Though it's not necessary for the court to decide the motion to dismiss to determine whether the motion to stay discovery should be granted, the court needs to "take a preliminary peek" at the motion's merits to dismiss "to see if it appears to be clearly meritorious and truly case diapositive," it said. A stay "will likely impact the case deadlines" the court put in place, and Smartbiz "has not justified the delay," it said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler for Northern California in San Francisco set a March 16 hearing at 9:30 a.m. PDT virtually on T-Mobile’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the California Public Utilities Commission (docket 3:23-cv-00483). T-Mobile challenged the CPUC changing state USF to connections-based contribution (see 2302020058). Responses to the injunction motion are due by Feb. 27; replies by March 9, Beeler said Monday.
The Commerce Department correctly assigned an adverse facts available rate to a Vietnamese exporter for its failure to respond to a supplemental questionnaire, even though it had previously found the company was not under government control and granted it a separate rate, the Catfish Farmers of America, a defendant-intervenor, argued in its Feb. 10 response brief at the Court of International Trade (Green Farms Seafood Joint Stock Company v. United States, CIT # 22-00092).
The Commerce Department has released the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on polyethylene retail carrier bags from China (A-570-886). The agency said two companies under review -- Dongguan Nozawa Plastics Products Co., Ltd. and its affiliate United Power Packaging, Ltd. -- did not have any shipments during the period of review. As a result, if the no shipments finding is confirmed in the final results, their cash deposit rate will not change, and any entries under their case numbers during the period Aug. 1, 2021, through July 31, 2022, will be liquidated at the China-wide rate, which is 77.57%.