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 Commerce Department continued to rely on antidumping duty respondent Dillinger France's normal books and records as facts otherwise available to fill in missing cost of production data. Submitting remand results on Nov. 16 to the Court of International Trade, Commerce said that using Dillinger's normal books and records to value both prime and non-prime merchandise "is the only reasonable approach" since it recognizes that where Dillinger cannot make all its merchandise perfectly, the lost value of the imperfect products is actually a cost of making the perfect goods "and should be accounted for as such" (Dillinger France S.A. v. United States, CIT #17-00159)
The Court of International Trade in a Nov. 17 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's surrogate data selection in the antidumping duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from South Korea. Judge Leo Gordon also upheld Commerce's remand results relating to steel plate cost smoothing. Previously, the court ruled that the agency must either further explain or reconsider its decision to adjust the steel plate costs for all reported control numbers. Gordon said that on remand, Commerce gave a "more thorough explanation as to how and why its cost analysis and the record" backed its decision to reject respondent Dongkuk S&C Co.'s reported steel plate costs.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 16 released the public version of its Nov. 15 opinion dismissing a conflict-of-interest suit filed by plaintiffs led by Amsted Rail Company seeking to removeDaniel Pickard and his firm Buchanan Ingersoll from an International Trade Commission injury proceeding for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that while the court does have the jurisdiction to review the ITC's decision to grant Pickard and Buchanan access to business proprietary information (BPI), it does not have this jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) -- the court's "residual" jurisdiction. The judge left the door open for the plaintiffs to refile their case under Section 1581(c) "once a claim under" this provision "is ripe."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Ruling against the Commerce Department's use of a particular market situation adjustment when normal value is based on constructed value "could render the provisions Congress enacted to empower Commerce to address distortive" PMS adjustments "a dead letter in most" AD proceedings, petitioner Wheatland Tube argued in a Nov. 14 reply brief. Responding to the appellee Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co.'s arguments for summary affirmance in the case, given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's key opinion in Hyundai Steel v. U.S., Wheatland said that Commerce's PMS adjustment actually squares with Hyundai Steel (Saha Tahi Steel Pipe Public Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1175).
Size-reduction machinery should be classified as duty-free machines for "crushing, grinding, or screening" rather than as "other electromechanical" machines, dutiable at 2.5%, importer Vecoplan said in a Nov. 14 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade (Vecoplan v. United States # 20-00126).
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision not to modify antidumping duty respondent Suzano's cost of production to exclude certain derivative expenses from the financial expense ratio in Nov. 14 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. The combination of Suzano's audited financial statements and quarterly earnings (QE) releases together show that the derivative losses are not extraordinary but instead represent financing expenses related to Suzano's normal operations and thus should not be excluded from the ratio, Commerce said (Suzano S.A. v. United States, CIT #21-00069).
The Court of International Trade in a Nov. 15 judgment dismissed Amsted Rail's conflict-of-interest case against its former counsel for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Concurrently filing a confidential opinion but a public order, Judge Gary Katzmann said the plaintiffs can refile under Section 1581(c). The case was originally filed under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction (Amsted Rail v. U.S., CIT #22-00307).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: