The Commerce Department reasonably used exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi's invoice date as the date of sale in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete rebar from Turkey, the Court of International Trade held on Jan. 15. Judge Jane Restani also upheld Commerce's differences-in-merchandise adjustment, finding that the adjustment wasn't distoritive in the way that it controlled for inflation.

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Nine different companies filed a total of 18 nearly identical complaints at the Court of International Trade on Jan. 13 contesting the Commerce Department's antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on aluminum extrusions from China. All the cases contest a part of Commerce's final scope decision in the proceedings, which found that the agency had the "legal authority to include within the scope of investigation, and did in fact include, 'inputs' to imported merchandise, as opposed to the actual imported merchandise itself" (Daikin Comfort Technologies Manufacturing v. United States, CIT #s 24-00250, -252).

Indian aluminum sheet exporter Hindalco Industries brought a complaint Jan. 10 to the Court of International Trade, saying the Commerce Department wrongly found to be specific programs by which Hindalco had been provided bauxite mining rights and coal and bauxite by the government of India for less-than-adequate remuneration (Hindalco Industries v. United States, CIT # 24-00234).

The Commerce Department engaged in a "fishing expedition" during the 2022 review of the countervailing duty order on phosphate fertilizer from Morocco, seeking information on potential subsidies "without a scintilla of evidence" indicating that any countervailable benefits existed, exporter OCP argued. Filing a complaint at the Court of International Trade on Jan. 13, OCP argued that Commerce went beyond its statutory authority and "should never have investigated potential subsidies based on information provided by OCP" (OCP v. United States, CIT # 24-00227).

The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on pentafluoroethane (R-125) -- a gas used in refrigerants -- from China in a decision made public Jan. 10.

The Commerce Department failed to justify its finding that a subsidy to exporter OCP from a program for relief from tax fines and penalties was de facto specific, the Court of International Trade held on Jan. 8. Remanding the countervailing duty investigation on phosphate fertilizers from Morocco for a second time, Judge Timothy Stanceu said the agency's altered defense of its specificity finding was no less "absurd" than it was in the first go-round.

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 8 denied the government's bid for default judgment against importer Rayson Global and its owner and CEO Doris Cheng in a customs penalty case, with Judge Timothy Stanceu taking issue with the U.S. claim for a monetary penalty totaling nearly $3.4 million.

Importer Retractable Technologies on Jan. 7 dropped its lawsuit at the Court of International Trade against the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's 100% Section 301 duty hike on needles and syringes. The company voluntarily dismissed the action without prejudice and declined to comment on the decision (Retractable Technologies v. United States, CIT # 24-00185).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 8 heard oral argument in the massive Section 301 litigation, primarily probing the litigants' positions regarding how to interpret the term "modify" in the statute and whether the statute allows the U.S. trade representative to impose duties in response to retaliatory measures from China (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).