The Commerce Department continued on remand to use antidumping duty respondent Nexco's acquisition costs as a proxy for the cost of production of beekeeper-suppliers as part of the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from Argentina. Submitting its remand results to the Court of International Trade on Oct. 13, Commerce also stuck by its decision to compare Nexco's U.S. sale prices with normal values based on Nexco's third-country sale prices to Germany on a monthly basis instead of a quarterly basis (Nexco v. U.S., CIT # 22-00203).
Timor-Leste is on track to complete its accession to the World Trade Organization by the 13th Ministerial Conference to be held in February 2024, WTO members said during the Oct. 11 meeting of the Working Party on the country's bid to join the global trade body. At the meeting, Timor-Leste said it was determined to settle the "outstanding technical issues, enact the few outstanding draft laws still required and conclude remaining bilateral negotiations" to wrap up accession by the February ministerial.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. asked for 55 more days to file its reply brief in the massive Section 301 litigation at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which would make the brief due on Dec. 21. The extension request is the second of its kind from the government, after it received a 60-day extension from the court (see 2308140026). Counsel for the plaintiff-appellants, Pratik Shah and Matthew Nicely of Akin Gump, opposed the extension "absent some medical, family, or similar intervening justification," arguing that thousands of companies are still paying the large Section 301 duties. The plaintiff-appellants consented to the first extension (HMTX Industries v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential Oct. 12 opinion remanded the International Trade Commission's affirmative injury determination on seamless standard, line and pressure pipe from South Korea, Russia and Ukraine. In the public remand order, Judge M. Miller Baker sent back the ITC's decision on the negligibility of imports from Russia, telling the agency to reconsider its calculation of in-scope imports from Germany and Mexico and the related finding that "there was only one importer each" for either country "in light of Customs data to the contrary" (PAO TMK v. United States, CIT # 21-00532).
The Commerce Department isn't allowed to rely on its past practice if it's contrary to a statute, though it "has sought to do just that in" the antidumping duty investigation on wind towers from Spain, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 12 opinion. Judge Timothy Stanceu said Commerce can't assign an individual company's adverse facts available rate to an entire collapsed entity in the present circumstances. The judge sent back the investigation for a second time, taking Commerce to task for ignoring the court's prior orders.
World Trade Organization members at an Oct. 3 meeting of the Council for Trade in Services discussed ways to boost the functioning of WTO services bodies, the global trade body said. Ahead of the 13th Ministerial Conference in late February, members discussed various suggestions, including adopting an e-Agenda, boosting substantive deliberations on trade in services issues and facilitating the engagement of external stakeholders.
A binational panel formed under the North American Free Trade Agreement issued its decision regarding the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada, sustaining and remanding various positions. The panel found that Commerce's scope findings in the proceeding were legal but that its use of its differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping wasn't.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Canadian exporter Midwest-CBK filed a consent motion seeking to dismiss its case on whether sales from a Canadian warehouse to U.S. customers are "sales for export to the U.S." or "domestic sales." The exporter said it "will not be able to provide further evidence" on the second phase of the litigation, which "would allow for determination of a dutiable value based on the "[Free on Board] Buffalo, New York" prices at which the company sold its imports to its U.S. customers. The company wants the issue resolved so it can "further the case's other issues on appeal" (Midwest-CBK v. U.S., CIT # 17-00154).