PrimeSource Building Products distinguished a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision affirming the Commerce Department's ability to use adverse facts available in its separate rate calculation from its case at issue at the Court of International Trade. Submitting a notice of supplemental authority to rival the one submitted by the antidumping petitioner, PrimeSource said that the recent Federal Circuit opinion in Bosun Tools v. U.S. is not applicable to its case since the appellate court noted an increasing trend in past rates calculated for one of the separate rate respondents that justified the use of AFA. No such trend exists in PrimeSource's case, the brief said.

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

Two importers asked the Court of International Trade to sustain remand results from the Commerce Department that found certain door thresholds qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. In a pair of briefs filed in two separate cases, Columbia Aluminum Products and Worldwide Door Components said Commerce correctly reversed course after CIT's remand (Worldwide Door Components v. United States, CIT #19-00012) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00013).

The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy is de facto specific via its Basic Payment Scheme to Spanish olive growers since they receive a "disproportionately large" amount of its benefits, the Department of Justice and defendant-intervenor Coalition for Fair Trade in Ripe Olives told the Court of International Trade in a pair of briefs (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. United States, CIT #18-00195).

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

The Court of International Trade should sustain the Commerce Department's decision to find the all-others rate in an antidumping duty review using a weighted average of the respondent's rates rather than a simple average, antidumping duty petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire said in Jan. 12 comments to the trade court. In its defense of Commerce's actions, Mid Continent cited a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion which held that Commerce can use an adverse facts available rate when finding the separate respondents' dumping margins (see 2201100026) (Pro-Team Coil Nail Enterprise v. United States, CIT #18-00027).

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

Borusan Mannesmann and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to apply Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions to their 19 entries, filed a notice of supplemental authority citing CBP rulings on classification of steel goods under Section 232 and Presidential Proclamation 9705 on the Section 232 tariffs to further support their arguments. The Department of Justice has moved to dismiss the case since the entries are unliquidated, precluding the Court of International Trade from having judicial review over the entries and the resulting tariff exclusion claims (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #21-00186).

The Court of International Trade granted the Commerce Department's voluntary bid to reconsider its decision to countervail the reduction for sewerage fees program in South Korea due to its "new understanding of Korean law," the trade court said in a Jan. 11 order. Commerce requested the do-over in a remand motion in which the plaintiff, Hyundai Steel, consented to the voluntary bid while the defendant-intervenor, Nucor Tubular, took no position on the matter (Hyundai Steel Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00304).

A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling that the Commerce Department can calculate a separate rate respondent's dumping margin by averaging an adverse facts available rate and a de minimis rate appeared in a similar case at the Court of International Trade. In a Jan. 11 notice of supplemental authority, defendant-intervenor Mid Continent Steel & Wire said the Federal Circuit opinion "once again affirmed" that the law allows Commerce to include rates based on AFA in the calculation of a separate rate if all the mandatory respondents have a zero, de minimis or AFA rate (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).