The Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 sustained CBP's decision on remand to find that importer Zinus didn't evade the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The agency made the decision after incorporating a scope ruling from the Commerce Department finding that seven models of metal and wood platform beds imported by Zinus aren't covered by the AD order (see 2501130011) (Zinus v. United States, CIT # 23-00272).

Exporters PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia and PT Grantec Jaya Indonesia -- two companies collapsed into one for antidumping duty procedural purposes -- took to the Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 to contest the 2022-23 review of the AD order on mattresses from Indonesia. Ecos/Grantec challenged the Commerce Department's determination to adjust three expense fields to include "overpaid allowances," along with the agency's adjustments to the companies' total cost of manufacturing under the "transactions disregarded" provision of U.S. antidumping law (PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia v. United States, CIT # 24-00238).

The U.S. filed Jan. 21 to dismiss a 2024 case brought by importer Houston Shutters under 28 U.S.C. 1581(i) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, saying the true nature of the action is a challenge to a scope determination and that the action should have been brought under Section 1581(c) instead (Houston Shutters v. U.S., CIT # 24-00193).

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit scheduled oral argument for the lead case on the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test in its differential pricing analysis, for March 5 at 10 a.m. EST. The issue was previously remanded by the Federal Circuit for Commerce to explain its use of the d test despite not adhering to basic statistical assumptions, such as the normal distribution of data and roughly equal variances (see 2107150032). The agency said on remand that it didn't need to adhere to these assumptions, since it's using the entire population of data and not just a sample. The Court of International Trade upheld this explanation (see 2302270049) (Stupp Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1663).

In a complaint before the Court of International Trade filed Jan. 20, two exporters alleged that the Commerce Department failed to correct multiple ministerial errors during an antidumping duty review on Chinese activated carbon (Ningxia Guanghua Cherishmet Activated Carbon Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00262).

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in the expedited countervailing duty review on softwood lumber products from Canada, in a confidential decision. Judge Mark Barnett sent the review back for Commerce to "reconsider or further explain its subsidy calculations with respect to" the consolidated entity of D&G/Portbec. The court found for the government on the remaining issues (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00122).

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

The United States and plywood importer Richmond International Forest Products settled their 2021 case in the Court of International Trade Jan. 16. The parties agreed in a motion for stipulated judgment that the exporter’s entries of Chinese-origin plywood were subject to antidumping, countervailing and Section 301 duties. Its Cambodia-origin plywood, however, was not subject to any of the three (Richmond International Forest Products v. United States, CIT #s 21-00063, -00318, -00319).

A group of importers, led by Tenaris Bay City Inc., will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's finding that it had sufficient U.S. industry support to launch the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on oil country tubular goods from Argentina, Mexico, South Korea and Russia. After previously remanding the issue, the trade court said the agency adequately addressed contrary evidence (see 2412110010). On remand, Commerce said it appropriately used industry source data and that finishing operations weren't double counted (Tenaris Bay City Inc. v. United States, CIT # 22-00343).