Importer Norca Industrial Company and exporter Vinlong Stainless Steel said the Commerce Department overstated Vinlong’s antidumping duty rate in a 2022-2023 review on welded stainless steel pressure pipe from Vietnam by relying on total adverse facts available and selecting Morocco as a surrogate country instead of Indonesia (Norca Industrial Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00132).
CBP unlawfully excluded importer Maxeon Americas' solar module entries on the basis that the goods were made, in whole or in part, in Xinjiang or by a company on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, Maxeon argued in a July 15 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer said the agency ignored "substantial and persuasive" evidence showing the company's Max6 model solar modules weren't made in Xinjiang or by a listed company, adding that the agency appears to be using an "unreasonably difficult standard" in reviewing whether goods are made in Xinjiang (Maxeon Americas v. United States, CIT # 25-00074).
The Court of International Trade on July 16 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the antidumping duty investigation on mushrooms from the Netherlands, upholding the agency's decision to select Germany as the third country for determining respondent Prochamp's normal value. Judge M. Miller Baker said Commerce adequately addressed the issue in Prochamp's German data, which indicated the company's German buyer likely resold Prochamp's mushrooms in Germany and another country. Commerce's efforts to proximate how much of Prochamp's product sold to Germany is resold in another country, along with the agency's subsequent finding that Germany still provided the best comparison market, is adequately supported, the court held.
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Petitioner Nucor Steel filed a July 11 complaint challenging the Commerce Department’s 2022 countervailing duty reviews on certain corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea. It said again that Commerce should have countervailed three debt-to-equity swaps received by mandatory respondent KG Dongbu Steel in 2015 and 2016, an issue that previously arose in the 2019 administrative review (see 2504110057) (Nucor Corp. v. United States, CIT # 25-00107).
Exporter Trina Solar Science & Technology will appeal a May Court of International Trade decision in which the court held that the Commerce Department properly found that exporters Canadian Solar and Trina Solar circumvented the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Chinese solar cells by sending their products through Thailand (see 2505160045). The trade court sustained the agency's decision to place special emphasis on the amount of research and development investment put into the companies' Thai facilities to show that the companies' processes in the country were "minor or insignificant." Trina will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Trina Solar Science & Technology (Thailand) v. United States, CIT # 23-00227).
The Commerce Department published July 9 its remand results of its 2018 countervailing duty review of Chinese-origin multilayered wood flooring, reversing its use of adverse facts available for exporter Senmao after deciding Senmao’s customers didn’t use China’s Export Buyers Credit Program (Evolutions Flooring v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00591).
The Court of International Trade on July 10 heard oral argument in importer Detroit Axle's case against President Donald Trump's decision to end the de minimis exemption for Chinese goods. Judges Gary Katzmann, Timothy Reif and Jane Restani pressed counsel for both the U.S. and the importer on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act enables the president to take such action, given the specific language at play in both IEEPA and 19 U.S.C. 1321, the de minimis statute (Axle of Dearborn, d/b/a Detroit Axle v. Dep't of Commerce, CIT # 25-00091).
Importer Smith-Cooper International on July 10 dismissed its case challenging an antidumping duty scope ruling it initially filed in 2019. The Commerce Department's scope ruling had found that the company's Cooplet weld outlets are subject to AD on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China. Counsel for the importer didn't respond to request for comment on the case (Smith-Cooper International v. United States, CIT # 19-00011).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a July 10 text-only order, told parties in a case on the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to file a joint status report that lays out the parties' proposed schedule to govern future proceedings at the district court. The case is currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2507030052). At the district court, Judge Rudolph Contereras held that the Court of International Trade doesn't have exclusive jurisdiction in the case, since IEEPA categorically doesn't provide for tariffs (see 2505290037) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, D.D.C. # 25-01248).