The effective dates of the Commerce Department's partial revocation of the antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells from China ran contrary to the agency's stated practice, because they excluded unliquidated entries that weren't subject to the final results of an administrative review or automatic liquidation at the time, importer Source Global said in a Feb. 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Source Global, PBC v. United States, CIT #22-00009).

Dominican aluminum extrusion manufacturer Kingtom Aluminio is guilty of evading the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, CBP said in a Feb. 4 evasion determination. Already party to two Enforce and Protect Act evasion inquiries as a producer, Kingtom was found guilty of evasion in a separate case where it acted as the importer of record. In fact, CBP used the fact that Kingtom began importing aluminum extrusions into the U.S. itself following the other two EAPA cases as evidence of Kingtom's alleged evasion.

A CBP protest was not needed to establish jurisdiction in two companies' challenge to CBP's assessment of Section 301 tariffs on goods subsequently granted a tariff exclusion since the challenge is not an entry-specific matter, the companies, ARP Materials and Harrison Steel, said in a Feb. 7 brief. Replying to the U.S.'s arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the plaintiff-appellants said that their challenge has jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), the trade court's "residual" jurisdiction provision, since the action relates to CBP's imposition of the requirements of an "inapt statute" to all the entries excluded from tariff lists 2 and 3 (ARP Materials Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2176).

The entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should consider the question of whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test when calculating normal value in antidumping duty proceedings, defendant-appellant Welspun Tubular said in a Feb. 8 petition for rehearing en banc (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748).

Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit probed the limits of the president's authority when implementing Section 232 national security tariffs during Feb. 9 oral arguments in a case representing a broad challenge to presidential action under the statute. Questions revolved around what elements, if any, of the process was judicially reviewable, with the plaintiffs, led by USP Holdings, arguing that the report issued by the commerce secretary to the president, which permits the president to impose the tariffs, is a final agency action and thus reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act (USP Holdings, Inc. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-1726).

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The Commerce Department cannot rely on adverse facts available in response the Chinese government's failure to provide certain information relating to its Export Buyer's Credit Program in a countervailing duty review, the Court of International Trade said in a Feb. 8 decision. Adding another to a line of decisions striking down the application of AFA in such circumstances, the court said Commerce has not shown why this information is necessary to verify that the CVD respondents, and their U.S. customers, did not use the program.

Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton expressed skepticism over the Commerce Department's assumption of 24 working days per month for calculating the surrogate labor rate in an antidumping duty case, during a Feb. 8 oral argument. The Department of Justice backed the use of the 24 working days standard, arguing that it is agency practice to use this number. Since counsel for Commerce at the oral argument could not provide a reason that the 24 working days standard exists, as opposed to a 19 or 20 working day alternative floated by the plaintiff, Eaton said that it should be easy to part with past agency practice as it wasn't an explained action (American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring v. United States, CIT #20-03948).

The Commerce Department switched its position on the countervailability of a South Korean sewerage fees program in Feb. 7 remand results, finding that the program is not countervailable. Commerce asked the Court of International Trade for a chance to reconsider the issue itself, ultimately coming back with the position that no benefit was preferred under the sewerage fees program and that the overall subsidy rate for countervailing duty respondent Hyundai Steel Company should be the de minimis rate of 0.49% (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, CIT #21-00012).

There is no exception for business confidential information to the requirement that CBP provide a company subject to an antidumping duty and countervailing duty evasion investigation access to the evidence on which the agency relies, importer Royal Brush told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Feb. 4 opening brief. CBP's denial of Royal Brush's access to the BCI in the Enforce and Protect Act investigation violated its due process rights and created a "flawed process for adjudicating complaints of duty evasion," the brief said (Royal Brush Manufacturing Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1226).