Jacob Kopnick

Steel exporters Universal Tube and Plastic Industries, along with THL Tube and Pipe Industries and KHK Scaffolding and Framework, say that the Commerce Department incorrectly determined that there was only a single level of trade in the home market, in an antidumping case on circular welded carbon-quality steel pipe from the United Arab Emirates. In a May 10 motion for summary judgment in the Court of International Trade, Universal argued that Commerce ignored substantial record evidence to the contrary, leading to an improper antidumping duty margin (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 20-03944).

Mexican steel exporter Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. says that since Section 232 tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum were made in violation of certain procedural requirements, they should not be deducted from the exporter's U.S. price when determining its antidumping margin. In a May 10 motion for summary judgment in a case at the Court of International Trade, Deacero also argued that since the tariffs are remedial and temporary, they are not ordinary customs duties and are thus excluded from antidumping duty calculations (Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. v. U.S., CIT # 20-03924).

The Commerce Department flipped its affirmative antidumping and countervailing duty circumvention rulings on certain hardwood plywood products from China following remand instructions from the Court of International Trade. In its May 10 remand redetermination filing, Commerce reconsidered evidence it initially determined to be untimely submitted and found that certain hardwood plywood products were not developed after Dec. 8, 2016, AD/CVD orders (Shelter Forest International Acquisition Inc., et al. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00212). The hardwood plywood in question had three qualities: 1) contained face and back veneers of radiata or agathis pine, 2) had a Toxic Substances Control Act or California Air Resources Board label certifying compliance with TSCA/CARB requirements, and 3) was made with a resin, the majority of which is composed of urea-formaldehyde, polyvinyl acetate or soy.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Following a second remand order from the Court of International Trade, the Commerce Department dropped a downward adjustment for irrecoverable value-added tax from Chinese tire exporter Qingdao Sentury Co.'s export price in an antidumping case in its second remand determination. Sentury's antidumping rate dropped from 4.42% to 2.26%, leaving both Sentury and the government defense to sign off on Commerce's remand in May 7 filings from the exporter and DOJ, setting up a final decision from Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves. Reversing itself under respectful protest, Commerce only dropped the VAT from the export price after Choe-Groves found that the VAT is not an export tax but rather a domestic tax presumed to be included in the price of the subject good.

Cookware importer Meyer Corporation is appealing a Court of International Trade ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether the importer can use the first sale valuation method for its cookware imports brought in from Thailand and China, according to a May 10 filing. The original March 1 CIT decision raised eyebrows after Judge Thomas Aquilino called into question the use of first sale with non-market economies. The Department of Justice recently cited the Meyer case in another lawsuit over first sale valuation (see 2104300049).

A Department of Justice defense of President Donald Trump's decision to eliminate a tariff exemption for bifacial solar panels would upend “well-settled principles of judicial review,” counsel for Solar Energy Industries Association argued in a May 7 response to DOJ's motion to dismiss. The DOJ argued that the Court of International Trade isn't permitted to review a president's factual determinations when determining if the tariff actions followed statute. Seeing as the president is only explicitly allowed to adjust previous safeguard measures to a product “after a majority of the representatives of the domestic industry submits to the President a petition requesting such reduction, modification, or termination on such basis, that the domestic industry has made a positive adjustment to import competition,” the questions of whether that petition was submitted and if domestic industry has indeed made the requisite adjustments have become central ones to the case.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction for Chinese big data processing technology company Luokung Technology Corp., temporarily blocking the company's designation as a Chinese military company. Judge Rudolph Contreras issued the injunction in a May 5 ruling, finding it likely Luokung would prevail in its case against the designation. The publicly traded Chinese tech giant claims that the Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC) designation issued by the Department of Defense was made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, was arbitrary and capricious, and that the evidence in hand was not substantial enough to support a finding of state control over the company.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results that scrapped the adverse facts available rate in a countervailing duty case, in a May 6 opinion. Judge Richard Eaton found that Commerce's eventual decision to ditch the AFA subsidy rate relating to alleged benefits that exporter Heze Huayi Chemical Co. received from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program was consistent with prior remand instructions. Plaintiffs Clearon and Occidental Chemical initially filed the challenge, claiming that the AFA rate for Heze relating to the EBCP was too low and inconsistent with prior Commerce practice.