The Court of International Trade in a May 26 order denied the U.S.'s stay bid in an antidumping case, citing harm to plaintiff and exporter Building Systems de Mexico (BSM) that could result from the stay. Judge Claire Kelly ruled that "a stay is not appropriate in this case," given that BSM has already successfully challenged four bases for the Commerce Department's finding of dumping and a stay "would significantly devalue" the company's investment in the challenge.

As companies work to move assembly out of China so that the goods they export to the U.S. won't be hit with Section 301 tariffs, they have to grapple with the fact that CBP may still consider a good made in Mexico, Malaysia, Vietnam or elsewhere to be a product of China if enough of its innards were made in China.

A renewable energy trade group called on the Commerce Department to end its anti-circumvention inquiry on solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, citing a recent news article that quoted energy industry analysts saying Auxin Solar misapplied their research to justify its allegations of circumvention.

Anti-circumvention petitioners need to walk a fine line between being inclusive in their definition of the scope of the goods to cover all goods potentially guilty of circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties, and not causing "mischief" at the International Trade Commission by making the scope too broad, said Mary Jane Alves, partner at Cassidy Levy. Speaking during a panel at the Georgetown International Trade Update about the interplay between the Commerce Department and the ITC, Alves, speaking on her own behalf and not for her firm or clients, said that petitions seeking to cover products that are further assembled, blended or processed in the U.S. under anti-circumvention cases can risk having the ITC deem those assemblers, blenders or processors part of the domestic industry.

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Some circumstances allow for post-importation price adjustments when determining transaction value, CBP headquarters said in a March 18 ruling, released May 23. The HQ ruling was sent to CBP's Automotive and Aerospace Center of Excellence and Expertise in response to a May 29, 2019, application for further review by an unnamed automotive importer. The importer buys motor vehicles and spare parts from its related parent company and resells them to authorized dealers and other related parties in the U.S.

Judge Mark Barnett, chief judge of the Court of International Trade, suggested that videoconferencing, which was rolled out as a salve for judicial proceedings in the face of COVID-19, is here to stay, especially for certain smaller proceedings in various trade cases. Speaking at the Georgetown International Trade Update on May 24, Barnett said that while in-person oral arguments are more in favor with the judges at the trade court, the prospect of continued videoconferencing to handle some smaller issues remains a real possibility for the court as it shifts out of the pandemic restrictions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a May 24 opinion that the Commerce Department improperly hit respondent Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. with adverse facts available over its reporting of service-related revenue. Judges Pauline Newman, Alan Lourie and Timothy Dyk said Hyundai has the right to supplement the record and Commerce cannot claim Hyundai didn't act to the best of its ability in the review since it fully responded to Commerce's requests for further information.

The Commerce Department must "find a practical solution" to verify information from countervailing duty respondents' U.S. customers that shows that they did not use China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, the Court of International Trade said in an opinion released May 20. Adding to a long line of CIT opinions striking down Commerce's use of adverse facts available over the EBCP, Judge Richard Eaton said that the agency can either find a solution to verify the non-use of the program on the record or recalculate the CVD rates for the two mandatory respondents, Dalian Meisen and Ancientree, without using the subsidy rate for the EBCP.

The Court of International Trade in a May 23 opinion sent back CBP's decision finding that MSeafood Corp. did not evade antidumping duties by transshipping Indian frozen warmwater shrimp through Vietnam. Judge Claire Kelly said that CBP only reviewed part of the record in making the decision and failed to adequately follow its own regulations requiring public summaries of confidential information.