Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

A Court of International Trade decision on the classification of net wraps used for bailing hay was "fatally inconsistent" with the Federal Circuit's controlling precedent on the tariff definition of a part, RKW Klerks argued in a May 7 brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (RKW Klerks v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1210).

The Commerce Department reasonably found that it doesn't need to incorporate offsets for the costs of complying with Germany's Electricity and Energy Tax Acts in countervailing duty rate calculations for respondent BGH Edelstahl Siegen, the Court of International Trade said. Ruling on Commerce's remand results in a case on the CVD investigation into forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany, Judge Claire Kelly also remanded the agency's finding of de jure specificity for Germany's KAV program. The judge said Commerce failed to explain how the criteria for the program are economic in nature and horizontal in application.

The Court of International Trade on April 27 upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case involving the 2018 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on utility scale wind towers from Vietnam. The Wind Tower Trade Coalition failed to convince the court that CS Wind Vietnam manipulated its rate in the review by redesigning its operations or that Commerce failed to correctly investigate the source of steel plate used in the towers.

The Commerce Department will not consider arguments for a particular market situation that are devoid of quantifiable data, the agency said as part of a proposed update to its antidumping duty regulations. While Commerce acknowledged that it legally can consider non-quantifiable data per the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in NEXTEEL v. U.S. (see 2304200048), the agency said it finds such arguments "typically unhelpful" to its analysis, proposing to not be required to consider them in determining whether a PMS exists. Commerce added that it will not be required to consider "speculative costs or prices" as well.

GreenFirst Forest is not the successor to Rayonier A.M. Canada (RYAM) for the purposes of countervailing duty calculation because RYAM still exists, DOJ said in its May 3 response brief at the Court of International Trade. DOJ asked the court to sustain Commerce’s remand redetermination on softwood lumber products from Canada (GreenFirst Forest Products v. U.S., CIT # 22-00097).

CBP ignored Congress' "unambiguous express statutory command when it failed to distribute" interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, appellant Monterey Mushrooms said in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Adee Honey Farms, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2105).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected importer China Custom Manufacturing's rehearing bid in an antidumping and countervailing duty scope case. In the decision, Judges Pauline Newman, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham said CCM's solar panel mounts do not qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China (see 2303020037). In its rehearing motion, CCM said that rehearing was needed to maintain uniformity of the appellate court's prior decisions concerning the "unambiguous plain language" of the finished merchandise exclusion rule. The rehearing bid was referred to the three judges that heard the case, then sent to the remaining active judges on the court (China Custom Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1345).

The Court of International Trade upheld the finding of CBP's Office of Regulations and Rulings (ORR) that MSeafood Corp. did not evade antidumping duties on frozen warmwater shrimp from India by transshipping the products through Vietnam, in a decision released to the public May 4. Judge Claire Kelly said that CBP in its affirmative evasion finding failed to consider evidence showing exporter Minh Phu Group's tracing system is reliable and arbitrarily transformed a single instance of evasion into an evasion finding for a whole year.

The Commerce Department dropped its presumption that exporter Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. was controlled by the Chinese government after the Court of International Trade questioned whether the agency could disregard an individually selected respondent's data in favor of the country-wide non-market economy rate. In its remand results to the trade court, Commerce assigned Jilin a zero percent dumping rate using the company's actual submissions during an antidumping duty administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China (Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 18-00191).