Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. moved to dismiss a complaint from solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy at the Court of International Trade challenging the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Southeast Asian countries found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these goods from China (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 denied a U.S. request for a voluntary remand to reconsider due process issues in an Enforce and Protect Act case involving cast iron soil pipe imports by Phoenix Metal, in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Jan. 23 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The senators from Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana asked the commerce secretary to reverse a preliminary decision to reduce the "Vietnam-wide" antidumping rate for Vietnamese catfish exporters that haven't been assigned their own rate to 14 cents per kilogram, from a previous $2.39/kg rate.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department repeatedly relied on an analysis in several administrative reviews that the courts had already struck down, an exporter of Indian carbon steel welded pipe said in a Jan.19 brief responding to comments made by DOJ and domestic petitioners regarding its own motion for summary judgment (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).
The U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit has consistently permitted the Commerce Department's use of its non-market economy policy in antidumping cases, the U.S. told the appellate court in a Jan. 18 opening brief. Appealing a Court of International Trade decision calling into question the NME policy, the government argued that "Congress has afforded Commerce wide latitude in how it enforces and implements" the AD statute and "this Court has consistently sustained Commerce's exercise of this discretion, in the absence of unambiguous statutory direction" (Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2245).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China. Judge M. Miller Baker relied on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. U.S. to reject claims from exporters HLDS (B) Steel and HLD Clark Steel Pipe against Commerce's comparison of their production of oil pipe in Brunei and the Philippines to the production of hot-rolled steel, an oil piping input, in China. The Federal Circuit already found that Commerce can make the comparison because the agency indicated what part of the total value of the goods subject to the inquiries is accounted for by the last step of processing and found that the level of investment is much greater for the production of hot-rolled steel than for oil piping, Baker noted.