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 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.

CBP did not violate importer Diamond Tools Technology's due process rights when it found that the company evaded antidumping duties on diamond sawblades from China, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 29 opinion, made public Nov. 5. However, Judge Timothy Reif did remand the case to CBP, finding that the actual finding of evasion was not supported as there was no "material and false statement" made by DTT. The judge also upheld CBP's authority to find that DTT's entries that pre-dated the start date of a related anti-circumvention inquiry are "covered merchandise."

After two failed attempts to prove that subsidies provided by the government of Spain to olive growers are de jure specific, the Commerce Department now asserts that the subsidies are de facto specific, in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade Nov. 3. While still disagreeing with the trade court's finding that the subsidies are not de jure specific to olive growers, Commerce nevertheless backed down and now argues for de facto specificity instead. Because the Spanish government purportedly failed to submit the information Commerce needed to hold de facto specificity on remand, the agency relied on facts otherwise available to derive the proposed countervailing duty rate.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should reverse a Court of International Trade decision that found that CBP's "indirect method" for weighing importer New Image Global's tobacco wraps that included the weight of additives was legally and scientifically valid, New Image argued in its Nov. 1 opening brief. The Federal Circuit should remand the case to instruct the trade court that the original test for weighing the tobacco wraps was valid, the importer said.

The Court of International Trade erred when it took "bypass" liquidations into its consideration of treatment previously afforded importer Kent International's children's bicycle seats, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Nov. 3 opinion. Remanding the issue to the trade court, a three-judge panel at the Federal Circuit, however, upheld CIT's determination that there was no de facto "established and uniform practice" (EUP) regarding the customs classification of kids' bike seats.

Trade Law Daily is providing readers with some recent top stories. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Antidumping review respondent Hyundai Steel Co. "shifted its narrative" when answering a supplemental questionnaire from the Commerce Department on remand from the Court of International Trade, U.S. Steel argued in comments on the remand results. Arguing against Commerce's decision to drop its adverse facts available finding over a discrepancy between two product codes, U.S. Steel argued that Commerce mistook the court's decision as "somehow requiring Commerce to blind itself to Hyundai's troubling history of failing to cooperate to the best of its ability."

The Court of International Trade ordered an in-person oral argument to take place on Nov. 4 to settle a matter in which the Department of Justice alleged that the plaintiff failed to obtain its consent before filing for a statutory injunction against the liquidation of its entries. In a brief on the injunction motion, DOJ said that counsel for Cheng Shin Rubber -- led by Jeffrey Winton of Winton & Chapman -- completely misrepresented its position, declaring that it had the government's consent for the injunction, when it didn't (see 2110250052).

CBP properly found that pencil importer Royal Brush Manufacturing evaded antidumping duties on cased pencils from China, the Court of International Trade held in an Oct. 29 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett upheld CBP's determination after initially remanding the case for not having provided adequate public summaries of business confidential information. Finding that on remand, CBP cleared this hurdle and that the summaries did not violate Royal Brush's due process rights, Barnett upheld the evasion finding.