The Commerce Department stuck with its application of facts available in remand results filed at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 25 despite a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision finding that such reliance on the current data was inappropriate. Seeing as no other data was available than respondent Dillinger France's books and records, Commerce said it had to rely on them despite their deficiencies (Dillinger France S.A. v. United States, CIT #17-00159).
The Court of International Trade granted partial judgment in an antidumping case on Aug. 26, holding that the Commerce Department legally included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited in the dumping calculation. Judge Leo Gordon originally made the call on Aug. 25, but issued Friday's decision of partial judgment to finalize the decision, seeing as there are other lingering issues still being litigated in the case.
The Commerce Department has to reconsider two scope rulings that found that certain flanges are subject to the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China. In two decisions, the Court of International Trade said that Commerce either misinterpreted evidence or failed to consider all the relevant evidence when deciding that flanges from MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, and Star Pipe Products are subject to the antidumping duty order.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Consolidated plaintiff in an antidumping case Hyundai Steel in an Aug. 25 filing signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results (see 2106220064) dropping a cost-based particular market situation adjustment from the sales-below-cost test. The case comes from the 2016-17 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea. Following elimination of the PMS adjustment, Husteel, the other plaintiff in the case, received a 6.44% dumping rate, down from 10.91%, while Hyundai received a 4.82% rate, down from 8.14%. Hyundai said no parties submitted comments opposing the remand results (Husteel Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #19-00107).
A lawsuit seeking Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions should be dismissed because the subject entries are not liquidated, the Department of Justice said in an Aug. 26 motion to dismiss at the Court of International Trade. The suit, brought by Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, is seeking the exclusions on 19 entries of steel pipe from Turkey and claims jurisdiction under Section 1581(a). However, a protestable decision needs to occur to claim this jurisdiction -- something the plaintiffs do not have, DOJ said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00186).
The Commerce Department had more than half of the domestic industry's support when it considered an antidumping and countervailing duty petition, the Department of Justice said in an Aug. 26 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to a brief from consolidated plaintiff M S International (MSI), DOJ said that none of the company's arguments excuses “its failure to proffer evidence on the record sufficient to upset Commerce's industry support determination” (Pokarna Engineered Stone Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-00127).
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Industrias Negromex and Dynasol, Mexican exporters of emulsion styrene-butadiene rubber (ESBR), are challenging the Commerce Department's rejection of questionnaire responses in an antidumping duty administrative review on ESBR from Mexico, according to an Aug. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's rejection of Negromex's corrective model matching information, whether considered a corrective filing or new factual information, constitutes an unlawful rejection of factual information and a failure to calculate an accurate dumping margin, the complaint said (Industrias Negromex, S.A. de C.V., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00495).
Advanced Extrusion, Ex-Tech Plastics and Multi-Plastics Extrusions, defendant-intervenors in an antidumping case, opposed plaintiff OCTAL's motion to expand the word limit and ability to submit reply comments to the Commerce Department's remand results. The intervenors said in an Aug. 24 brief that OCTAL's comment schedule would “improperly extinguish” their opportunity to comment on the remand results, which could prejudice their rights on appeal (OCTAL, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).