The Commerce Department continued to find that antidumping respondents Aeolus Tyre and Guizhou Tyre Co. were de facto controlled by the Chinese government, denying them separate rate status in Sept. 24 remand results filed at the Court of International Trade (Guizhou Tyre Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #17-00100).

CBP erroneously classified importer Topcon Positioning System's rotating laser levels under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9031, the importer argued in a Sept. 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade. By failing to analyze the principal use of the laser levels, CBP neglected to properly classify the products under HTS subheading 9015,the complaint said (Topcon Positioning Systems, Inc. v. United States, CIT #14-00189).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Australian exporter BlueScope Steel and its U.S. affiliate challenged the Commerce Department's decision to not deduct discounts and rebates from the company's normal value when setting its antidumping duty rate in an administrative review, in a Sept. 28 complaint at the Court of International Trade. BlueScope said that this decision cut against the agency's regulations and was "premised on a wholly inaccurate understanding of the data that BlueScope submitted" (BlueScope Steel Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00509).

The Commerce Department ditched its reliance on adverse facts available for respondent Hyundai Steel in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade in a challenge to an antidumping review on cold-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. After giving Hyundai an opportunity to explain a discrepancy between two product codes, the agency accepted the explanation and thus dropped its adverse facts available finding. Commerce also rescinded its decision to apply the all-others rate to one of Hyundai's affiliated freight companies, dubbed "Company A" (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00099).

Knit gloves with a plastic coating on the palm and on the front and sides of the fingers are classifiable as textile gloves of heading 6116, not articles of plastic of heading 3926, the Department of Justice said in a brief filed Sept. 17 with the Court of International Trade. The gloves are entirely described by the terms of heading 6116, and as such can’t be classified in the residual subheading for plastics, DOJ said (Magid Glove & Safety Manufacturing Co. v. U.S., CIT # 16-00150).

Mobilier Rustique (Beauce) Inc. will appeal a recent Court of International Trade ruling that the Commerce Department cannot conduct expedited reviews of countervailing duty investigations, according to a Sept. 28 notice of appeal. In its remand results in the case, Commerce said that it could not find a statutory home for the expedited reviews conducted on a 2018 CVD order on softwood lumber from Canada. Chief Judge Mark Barnett sustained this finding in an August ruling (see 2108190002) (Mobilier Rustique (Beauce) Inc. v. United States, CIT #19-00164).

The Commerce Department's calculation of the separate rate in an antidumping duty review by averaging the separate rates from the previous four administrative reviews was backed by substantial evidence, the Court of International Trade said in a Sept. 27 order. After previously finding that Commerce's extension of the adverse facts available rate to the non-individually examined respondents was unlawful, the court then upheld the agency's new separate rate calculation methodology.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Court of International Trade ruled once again Sept. 27 that the Commerce Department cannot make a particular market situation adjustment to the cost of production for the sales-below-cost test when calculating normal value. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves remanded the case to Commerce, finding that nothing in the statute permits such an adjustment.