Jacob Kopnick

The Court of International Trade granted on Nov. 9 a voluntary remand motion from the Commerce Department to reconsider the terms of an alleged benefit conferred to a countervailing duty review respondent. In particular, Commerce will reconsider a South Korean government program relating to the payments of sewerage fees that allegedly gave respondent Hyundai Steel Co.a countervailable benefit. The case concerns the 2018 CVD administrative review of cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea. Commerce said it wants to reconsider the sewerage fees program since it learned more about the program when conducting the 2019 CVD review of the same goods (see 2111080050). The agency has 90 days to reconsider its position (Hyundai Steel Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00012).

The Commerce Department further defended its decision to continue relying on facts otherwise available in Nov. 8 comments submitted to the Court of International Trade, despite a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion finding that such reliance on the current data was inappropriate. The plaintiff in the case, Dillinger France, argued that Commerce ignored the Federal Circuit's directive by continuing to rely on the "likely selling prices" in Dillinger France's records rather than the actual cost of production. Commerce responded that the plaintiff failed to submit the actual product-specific costs of producing the non-prime products or the physical characteristics of the non-prime products, leading to no other choice but to use facts otherwise available (Dillinger France S.A. v. United States, CIT #17-00159).

The Court of International Trade should remand the Commerce Department's particular market situation adjustment to an exporter's constructed value, the exporter, Garg Tube Export, argued in a Nov. 8 brief at CIT. Substantial evidence does not support Commerce's evidence of a PMS existing, so the holding should be remanded, Garg Tube said. Though Commerce correctly reversed its PMS adjustment to its sales-below-cost test for some Garg Tube products on a first remand, the agency should not have found a PMS existed at all for Garg Tube, the exporter said.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla will avoid a lawsuit alleging the tech giants benefited from child labor in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Finding that the plaintiffs -- a group of anonymous individuals -- failed to establish a causal connection between their injuries and the tech companies, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case, finding a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction (John Doe I, et al. v. Apple Inc., et al., D.D.C. #19-03737).

Hyundai Steel Co. attempted to explain away an attack from antidumping petitioner U.S. Steel that it has a "troubling history" on a key issue in the AD review, in a Nov. 8 brief submitted to the Court of International Trade. Asserting that its prior positions are irrelevant to the issue at hand, Hyundai characterized U.S. Steel's attacks as "without merit," arguing instead that its "perceived deficiency" in certain data fields can be easily explained to Commerce (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00099).

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

The Commerce Department wants another chance to consider a countervailing duty review after it learned more about the alleged benefit conferred to the respondent, the Department of Justice said in an unopposed remand motion filed Nov. 8 at the Court of International Trade. In particular, Commerce wants to reconsider a South Korean government program relating to the payments of sewerage fees that allegedly gave respondent Hyundai Steel Co.a countervailable benefit (Hyundai Steel Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00012).

Antidumping duty investigation respondent Hyundai Steel Co.'s arguments against the Commerce Department's particular market situation finding for South Korean hot-rolled coil cannot be considered because they don't apply to Hyundai, the Department of Justice told the Court of International Trade in a Nov. 8 brief. Even if the court were to consider Hyundai's arguments on this issue, nothing in the court's latest opinion in the case precludes Commerce from finding a PMS, the brief said. Rather, CIT only took issue with Commerce's application of the PMS finding.

A recent Commerce Department scope ruling nullifies importer Valeo North America's case at the Court of International Trade, the Department of Justice said in its Nov. 1 motion to dismiss. Seeing as Valeo sought for the court to compel Commerce to issue a final decision on its scope determination, the case is no longer necessary since Commerce actually made the scope decision. Further, CIT doesn't have jurisdiction over the case as Valeo claims, as jurisdiction now rests under a different portion of the law, given Commerce's final agency action, the motion said (Valeo North America v. United States, CIT #21-00426).

The Commerce Department did not abuse its discretion when it denied a group of domestic chloropicrin producers' bid to retroactively extend a filing deadline, the Court of International Trade said in a Nov. 8 opinion. Not buying the plaintiffs' excuses that the deadline was missed due to a combination of technical and medical issues, Judge Timothy Stanceu upheld Commerce's rejection of the extension requests following revocation of the relevant AD duty order because of the missed deadline.