CIT Sends Back Parts, Upholds Parts of Expedited CVD Review on Canadian Lumber
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in the expedited countervailing duty review on softwood lumber products from Canada, in a confidential decision. Judge Mark Barnett sent the review back for Commerce to "reconsider or further explain its subsidy calculations with respect to" the consolidated entity of D&G/Portbec. The court found for the government on the remaining issues (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00122).
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The judge gave the parties until Jan. 28 to review the confidential information in the decision.
In its remand decision, Commerce chose to apply the subsidies received by unaffiliated suppliers of lumber to a few expedited Canadian lumber review respondents, though this ultimately had no effect on the respondents' countervailing duty rates (see 2409130057). The agency also switched from using FY 2014 to FY 2015 tax returns to calculate the benefit an exporter received from a tax credit, leading the company to get a de minimis rate.
Commerce said the relationship between the four unaffiliated suppliers and two respondents, D&G/Portbec and Rustique, was a relationship between a producer and its trading company under the agency's regulations since the respondents conducted either minor or no processing on the lumber prior to reselling it.