The Commerce Department will review whether Russia is a non-market economy for antidumping duty purposes as part of a less-than-fair-value investigation into urea ammonium nitrate from the country, Commerce said in a notice initiating the investigation. Domestic producer CF Industries Nitrogen and its subsidiaries alleged that Russia was a nonmarket economy in the petition underlying the investigation.
The Commerce Department only needs to show the potential for government control to deny separate rate status to a non-market economy exporter, the Court of International Trade said in a July 6 opinion made public on July 21. "A puppet master is no less in control when the strings are slack," CIT Judge M. Miller Baker said in the opinion. To be granted an individual rate, the respondent must prove that its operations are devoid of de facto government control. Since I.D.I. International Development and Investment Corporation failed to do, it failed to obtain an individual rate, the judge said.
The Court of International Trade on July 12 upheld the Commerce Department's pick of Romania over Malaysia as a surrogate country in an antidumping case, but sent back to the agency the resulting financial ratio calculation of a Romanian company. Since Commerce failed to address the concerns of mandatory respondent Ancientree Cabinets, Judge Gary Katzmann directed Commerce to reconsider Ancientree's objections. Other aspects of the investigation under contention, namely the selection of Romania over Malaysia and Commerce's picks for product input surrogate values, were upheld by Katzmann.
The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final determination in the antidumping duty investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, in a July 12 order. In its case, exporter Ancientree challenged three aspects of the review -- Commerce's selection of Romania as the primary surrogate country, the agency's financial ratio calculation and its selection of Harmonized Tariff Schedule headings for surrogate value inputs. Judge Gary Katzmann found that the Romania pick and surrogate values selection were properly supported but that Commerce's explanation of its financial ratio calculation was arbitrary and capricious.
The Commerce Department's decision to assume 24 working days per month for calculating surrogate labor rates, instead of 21 days, in an antidumping administrative review is unsupported, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a June 24 motion for judgment in the Court of International Trade. The coalition said the agency failed to properly explain its switch to 24 working days after originally relying on 21 days in its preliminary determination (Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood v. United States, CIT #20-03930).
The Commerce Department continued to use Malaysia as its primary surrogate country in an antidumping administrative review after the Court of International Trade told the agency to further explain the departure from using Romania, Commerce said in June 30 remand results. The agency did, however, grant that Romania classifies as a "significant producer" of activated carbon, the subject merchandise, a departure from its final results. The agency also switched to using Malaysian surrogate values for a key input in activated carbon for most of the mandatory respondents' suppliers.
The Department of Justice invoked a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion in an antidumping case involving a country-wide rate for a non-market economy, according to a June 28 notice of supplemental authority in the Court of International Trade. In the case, the China Manufacturers Alliance and Shanghai Huayi Group Corporation said that Commerce determined a country-wide antidumping rate without providing the legal basis for doing so in an antidumping investigation of truck and bus tires from China (Guizhou Tyre Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00031). But in China Manufacturers Alliance, LLC v. United States, decided on June 10, the Federal Circuit said that Commerce can assign a China-wide rate “by the very means in which Commerce did in this investigation,” DOJ said. The decision showed that Commerce's China-wide rate is an individually investigated rate (see 2106100044).
The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's finding that Zhejiang Machinery Import & Export Corp. failed to rebut the presumption of de facto government control, thus barring it from receiving a separate antidumping rate, CIT said in a June 23 decision. The ruling leaves ZMC with the 92.84% China-wide rate in an antidumping administrative review on tapered roller bearings and parts thereof, finished or unfinished, from China.
Antidumping duty China-wide rates can still be based on adverse facts available (AFA) even if no members of the countrywide entity were found to be uncooperative in an administrative review, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a June 10 decision reversing a decision to the contrary from the Court of International Trade.
Antidumping duty China-wide rates can still be based on adverse facts available (AFA) even if no members of the countrywide entity were found to be uncooperative in an administrative review, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a June 10 decision reversing a decision to the contrary from the Court of International Trade.