The Commerce Department's decision on remand to reverse its affirmative determination that certain hardwood plywood products from China circumvented antidumping and countervailing duties "defies a wealth of evidence about what actually occurred in the hardwood plywood market," petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in June 7 comments on Commerce's remand results. Commerce ignored multiple pieces of contradictory evidence in making its determination following a Court of International Trade opinion remanding the case and made a determination that undermines its own conclusion that certain hardwood plywood was not "later-developed" after the AD/CVD orders, the coalition said (Shelter Forest International Acquisition, Inc. et al v. United States, CIT #19-00212).
The Commerce Department should have used the highest margin for the sole mandatory respondent in an antidumping case since the agency decided to rely on adverse facts available in the investigation, domestic silicon metal producers Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon said in a June 7 complaint in the Court of International Trade. The two producers also challenged Commerce's decision to disregard that rate based on a financial statement from a firm "whose financial results were dominated by operations unrelated to the production of silicon metal" (Globe Specialty Metals, Inc. and Mississippi Silicon LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00231).
The Court of International Trade issued a confidential opinion in an antidumping case on welded line pipe from South Korea sustaining the Commerce Department's remand results in part and remanding in part, according to a June 7 filing. According to a letter filed by Judge Claire Kelly, the public version of the decision is expected either on or shortly after June 15 once all parties review bracketed information to determine its level of confidentiality. The case, originally filed by Husteel Co., concerns, among other things, Commerce's finding of a particular market situation in Korea for welded line pipe, the agency's reliance, or lack thereof, on a mandatory respondent's third country sales to calculate normal value and Commerce's reclassification of a respondent's reported losses associated with suspended production as general and administrative expenses.
A pasta maker found ineligible for an acquired company’s antidumping duty exemption in a 2014 changed circumstances review cannot use that predecessor’s antidumping and countervailing duty rates for entries before the effective date of the final results of that review, CBP said in a recent ruling. Instead, the pasta maker must file at the all others rate for entries before the changed circumstances review took effect, CBP said in HQ H287183, issued March 26 and posted to CBP’s CROSS database June 3.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 3 and 4 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):
The Commerce Department complied with the Court of International Trade's remand instructions by switching from an application of adverse facts available to neutral facts available in an antidumping case on frozen warmwater shrimp from India, defendant-intervenor Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee said in June 3 comments on the remand results. CIT issued the remand instructions (see 2102030006) after finding that Commerce failed to "provide adequate assistance" to Elque Group, a respondent in the case and small company that was found to have provided adequate notice to Commerce that it needed assistance (Calcutta Seafoods Pvt. Ltd., Bay Seafood Pvt. Ltd., and Elque & Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00201). Commerce applied AFA originally since Elque Group's cost data was deemed unreliable by the agency.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP “NY” rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
CBP has released its June 2 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 55, No. 21), which includes the following ruling actions:
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.
CBP is investigating Gogo International in response to allegations of evasion of antidumping duties required on imported diamond sawblades from China, CBP said in a May 19 notice. The investigation stems from allegations filed under the Enforce and Protect Act by the Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers’ Coalition, CBP said. The group alleged that Gogo evaded AD/CV duties using transshipment. The coalition is represented by Wiley lawyer Daniel Pickard. The Commerce Department recently issued a scope ruling in the case following a CBP request (see 2104300081).