The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a March 11 order that the Commerce Department did not properly support its position that a particular market situation existed affecting inputs to oil country tubular goods from South Korea. Finding that three of Commerce's five reasons for finding a PMS were not backed by enough evidence, the Federal Circuit upheld the Court of International Trade's identical ruling. The appellate court also remanded Commerce's differential pricing analysis -- used to uncover "masked" dumping -- for relying on a statistical test that did not fulfill certain conditions to properly run the test.

Mayer Brown wants nearly $3 million in legal fees over a False Claims Act case it won for Island Industries in which a California district court said that Japanese manufacturer Sigma Corporation avoided antidumping duties. Petitioning the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Mayer Brown said that the $3 million request for fees, costs and expenses -- amounting to around 11.3% of the total judgment -- is "eminitely reasonably and justified" given Sigma's complex defense of its actions in multiple venues (United States v. Vandewater International, C.D. Cal. #17-04393).

Exporter China Customs Manufacturing's solar panel mount assemblies are "fully and completely assembled" at the time they're imported, thus qualifying for a finished merchandise exclusion from the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, CCM argued. Filing its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 8, CCM, along with Greentec Engineering, argued that the record shows that the solar panel mount assemblies satisfy each of the requirements for the exclusion, including being fully assembled at the time of entry (China Custom Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1345).

The Court of International Trade granted steel importer North American Interpipe refunds on Section 232 steel and aluminum duties it paid following court mediation over the company's challenge to the U.S.'s denials of NAI's exclusion requests from the tariffs. Per the public stipulated judgment on agreed-upon fact, Judge M. Miller Baker penned an order which declares that NAI may not appeal (North American Interpipe v. United States, CIT #20-03825).

The Uruguay Round Agreements Act taken as a whole authorizes expedited countervailing duty reviews, the governments of Quebec and New Brunswick along with six Canadian companies argued in a March 8 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. When taking into account the context of the URAA, its legislative history and the legislative process through which the URAA was adopted, it's clear that Congress meant to establish an expedited review process, the Canadian parties argued.

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During oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, three judges questioned the use of a particular statistical test, the Cohen's d test, that is used to identify "masked" dumping in antidumping proceedings. The inquiry built off a July 2021 Federal Circuit ruling that called the use of the test into question since the Commerce Department failed to fulfill certain statistical requirements before running the test (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1747).

CBP recently ruled that imports of men's suits from an Italian parent company to its related U.S. importer didn't qualify for first sale treatment. In a ruling issued Jan. 4 and released March 7, the agency said that transactions between factory and parent company and between parent company and importer don't qualify as "sales" and that the transaction value between the importer and its U.S. customers should instead be used to value the merchandise. The ruling followed a request for internal advice from the CBP Validation and Compliance Division as to how to correctly appraise the suits.

A Canadian exporter's challenge of antidumping cash deposit instructions should be dismissed since the company can obtain a review of the cash deposit rate through an already initiated USMCA panel review, DOJ said in a March 4 brief. What the exporter, J.D. Irving, really wants is to not pay current cash deposits at the current rate, DOJ told the Court of International Trade. Even if the court finds it does have jurisdiction over the cash deposit instructions, the case still should be dismissed since the payment of cash deposits doesn't establish standing since it isn't an injury, DOJ said (J.D. Irving Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00641).

Japanese exporter Nagase & Co.'s antidumping duty case is an "excellent candidate for resolution via mediation," it told the Court of International Trade in a March 4 motion. Nagase's challenges the Commerce Department's calculation of its cost of production and an alleged error in the assessment rate in Commerce's liquidation instructions to CBP under the court's "residual" jurisdiction (Nagase & Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00574).