Plaintiffs in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade, led by Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results in Aug. 11 comments, finding them in accordance with the CIT's instructions. The case stems from an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Following multiple court decisions and remand results (see 2107130080), Fine Furniture's case was stayed pending the results of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision which eventually found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping duty order. Since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD order received de minimis duty rates in Commerce's final determination, Fine Furniture was removed from the review. This led to the AD rate for all separate rate respondents falling to zero percent (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #14-00135).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 20 backed the Commerce Department's initial decision to adjust a Turkish pipe exporter's post-sale price by only one-third of a late delivery penalty, saying it was supported by substantial evidence. Reversing a ruling from the Court of International Trade, the appellate court held that CIT erred in backing Commerce into adjusting the post-sale price by the entirety of the penalty cost since the customer was not aware of the methodology by which the amount of the penalty was to be determined. The decision brought the antidumping margin for mandatory respondent Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Vicaret's above de minimis to 5.11%.
The Commerce Department submitted its remand results to the Court of International Trade on July 12 in an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring, dropping one of the mandatory respondents from the review in response to a ruling in a separate case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. United States, CIT # 14-00135). Following multiple court decisions and remand results, proceedings in Fine Furniture's case were stayed pending the results of the Federal Circuit appeal in Changzhou Hawd Flooring Co., Ltd. v. United States. The eventual decision found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping order since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD order received de minimis duty rates in Commerce's final determination (see 2106020069). CIT lifted the stay and remanded the case to exclude Fine Furniture from the review and recalculate the rate for the separate respondents. As a result of Fine Furniture's departure from the review, and the other two mandatory respondents in the review having zero percent antidumping duty margins, the AD rate for all separate rate respondents would fall to zero percent, should the rate be sustained.
The Commerce Department swapped the surrogate labor data it used to calculate normal value in an antidumping investigation after it reconsidered evidence showing signs of forced labor in Malaysia's electrical and electronics [E&E] sector, according to July 8 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. Finding that this forced labor unfairly skewed the labor costs for consideration as surrogate data, Commerce instead opted to use International Labor Comparisons data for Mexico in 2016 to determine the surrogate labor value (New American Keg v. United States, CIT #20-00008).
The Court of International Trade in a June 2 opinion remanded an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China to the Commerce Department after a related ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found the mandatory respondents to not be subject to the AD order. In the remand, Commerce is to determine a new rate for the separate rate respondents now that the existing 0.79% dumping margin for the mandatory respondents' rate no longer applies.
Turkish steel exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi accused the Commerce Department of a "severe abuse of discretion" by rejecting entire questionnaire responses because certain parts were filed 21 minutes and 87 minutes late in an antidumping and a countervailing duty investigation, respectively. Celik Halat says Commerce should not have applied adverse facts available to its exports of prestressed concrete steel wire strand from Turkey due to the late filings in two May 28 motions for judgment. (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00045, #21-00050).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP “NY” rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: