The Commerce Department is asking for public comments on its proposals to revise the current policy of assessing entries of unaffiliated resellers at the all-others antidumping duty rate and to eliminate expedited countervailing duty reviews. Comments are due by July 7.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices June 4 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 19 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
In a complaint brought to the Court of International Trade on May 30, exporters Kumar Industries and Bajaj Healthcare Limited pushed back against the Commerce Department’s review of the antidumping duty order on Indian-origin glycine. Kumar was hit with adverse facts available after the Commerce Department found it failed to adequately report affiliation with four other companies (Kumar Industries v. United States, CIT # 25-00081).
The Court of International Trade on June 2 sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in the antidumping duty investigation on Indian forged steel fluid end blocks, rejecting claims from the petitioners, led by Ellwood City Forge Co., that the agency should have expanded its use of adverse facts available. Judge Stephen Vaden said "neither statute nor case law requires such an inequitable result," given the limited nature of the gaps on the record.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices June 3 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade in a confidential May 30 order remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on Chinese solar cells. Judge Claire Kelly sustained Commerce's valuation of air freight but sent back the agency's valuation of solar glass under Romanian Harmonized System subheading 7007.19.80 and its methodology for calculating adverse facts available. The judge also sent back Commerce's "determination of the review specific rate" for exporters JA Solar and BYD. Kelly gave the parties until June 5 to review the confidential information in the decision before the court releases a public version (Jinko Solar Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00219).
The Commerce Department wasn't required to broaden its use of adverse facts available based on small reporting errors from the respondent, the Court of International Trade held on June 2. During verification conducted on remand in the antidumping duty investigation on Indian steel fluid end blocks, Commerce found two errors from respondent Bharat Forge: its reported content of molybdenum, a steel input, for one steel grade and its failure to report "parts" costs for two control numbers. Judge Stephen Vaden rejected the petitioners' claims that these errors indicate broader reliability concerns in Bharat's data, finding that Commerce had no need to "apply a broader adverse inference," since the errors were small.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices June 2 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 30 issued its mandate in an antidumping duty scope case from importers Smith-Cooper International and Sigma after denying a petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc. The importers petitioned for a rehearing of the court's March decision finding the term "butt-weld" to be ambiguous and that the Commerce Department was right to find steel branch outlets to be covered by an AD order on butt-weld pipe fittings from China (see 2503060073). Judge Timothy Dyk dissented in that three-judge decision, finding that the agency erred by refusing to properly consider the regular industry definition of the term (Vandewater International v. United States, Fed. Cir. #s 23-1093, -1141).