The Court of International Trade on Oct. 7 denied importer Interglobal Forest's application for attorney's fees in its suit challenging CBP's affirmative finding of evasion of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. Judge Mark Barnett said that Interglobal wasn't a "prevailing party" in the action because the evasion determination was reversed without admitting to an agency error and only after the Commerce Department reversed its scope finding after separate legal action at the trade court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 7 issued its mandate in a case on the 2015-16 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from Taiwan (see 2408150020). In August, CAFC sustained the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against exporter Unicatch Industrial Co. for failing to submit adequate cost reconciliation information in the review. The court said Unicatch failed to act to the best of its ability in failing to correct the reconciliation information (Pro-Team Coil Nail Enterprise v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2241).
Plaintiffs in a case regarding the countervailability of three debt-to-equity swaps filed a brief Oct. 7 in support of the Commerce Department’s reluctant reversal on remand (see 2407030073). The department found those swaps weren't countervailable, because it hadn't countervailed them in three prior reviews either (KG Dongbu Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00047).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 3 stayed the briefing schedule in a trio of cases brought by exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) while it considers the company's motion to consolidate the three appeals. All three cases center on the sunset review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Turkey (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2242).
After the Commerce Department once again refused in an administrative review to investigate an alleged countervailable subsidy provided by the South Korean government, the original investigation’s petitioner claimed the department’s results upon remand (see 2408160038) actually showed a reluctance on Commerce's part to investigate time of use electricity supply systems that can sustain themselves annually (Nucor Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00182).
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The Commerce Department on Sept. 23 said that it can permissibly use "inter-quarter comparisons" in the Cohen's d test while detecting "masked" dumping while using "same-quarter comparisons" in its margin calculations. The agency said that "fluctuating production costs," which call for same-quarter comparisons in calculating antidumping duty margins, "do not introduce distortions into the comparison of U.S. prices with other U.S. prices in the Cohen's d test" (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 23-00113).
A German exporter of steel used to transport corrosive materials responded Sept. 20 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to a U.S. claim that the Commerce Department's decision to calculate certain of the exporter’s production costs for a review using the items' sales values was rational because the figures “came from Dillinger’s own books and records” (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1498).
An importer of weekly/monthly planners told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 18 that it and the government were in agreement that the Court of International Trade had committed a reversible error by classifying its planners as diaries (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).
Importer Nutricia North America told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 18 that the government's claims in a customs suit on the company's medical foods present "several fundamental flaws." Nutricia argued that, despite the government's claim that the products are barred from Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 3004 due to Note 1(a) to chapter 30, the medical foods "easily fall within the terms of heading 3004 as 'medicaments ... for therapeutic uses'" (Nutricia North America v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1436).