The Court of International Trade partially remanded the Commerce Department's final determination in the countervailing duty investigation on utility-scale wind towers from Vietnam, in a March 24 confidential opinion. The U.S. trade group Wind Tower Trade Coalition brought the case to argue in favor of an adverse facts available rate for an exporter. According to the coalition's complaint, the plaintiff challenged Commerce's decision to rely on respondent CS Wind's South Korean affiliate's sales revenue for wind towers as the denominator in the subsidy calculations rather than CS Wind's own sales revenue. The coalition also said that Commerce erred in relying on CS Wind's alleged contradictory reporting on the country of origin and supplies for its steel plate inputs when calculating a subsidy rate for the Import Duty Exemptions on Imports of Raw Materials for Exporting Goods program (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. U.S., CIT #20-03692).
The Court of International Trade should not grant the Commerce Department's motion to extend the deadline to file remand results in an antidumping duty case, given the agency's mismanagement of the remand period, exporter SeAH Steel Corporation said in a March 24 brief. If the court does grant Commerce's motion, however, the time should only be extended for two business days plus one business hour -- the same time Commerce gave SeAH to file comments on the agency's remand. SeAH dubbed Commerce's conduct "egregious" and an expression of its "failure to consult in good faith" over the remand schedule (Stupp Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #15-00334).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied antidumping duty petitioner Welspun Tubular's request for a stay of its mandate during the company's appeal to the Supreme Court. In a March 23 order, Judges William Bryson and Todd Hughes rebuffed both of Welspun's arguments, which claimed that the company would suffer irreparable harm without a stay and that there's a reasonable shot the Supreme Court will reverse the appellate court's judgment (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748).
U.S. steel manufacturer Maverick Tube lied to the Commerce Department when it objected to importer Maple Leaf Marketing's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests, MLM told the Court of International Trade in a March 18 brief. As such, Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security's decision to deny these requests cannot be sustained, MLM argued. It urged the trade court to remand the case so Commerce can add communications the agency had with a subject matter expert on whose word the exclusion requests were denied (Maple Leaf Marketing v. United States, CIT #20-00125).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
DOJ is again arguing that it can file counterclaims in Court of International Trade classification cases -- even after more than four years into a case. Days after defending its counterclaim in another denied protest case involving importer Cyber Power (see 2203180042), DOJ is now arguing that delays by another importer in a separate case, Second Nature, allow it to bring a counterclaim despite the time elapsed (Second Nature Designs Ltd. v. United States, CIT #17-00271).
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling is "critical" to an antidumping duty case brought by exporter SeAH Steel Corporation, defendant-intervenor U.S. Steel Corporation said in a March 21 notice of supplemental authority at the Court of International Trade. The recent Federal Circuit opinion held that the Commerce Department did not properly support its position that a particular market situation existed affecting inputs to oil country tubular goods from South Korea (see 2203110044). While the appellate court's decision upheld the trade court's ruling that the PMS determination was not justified, the court used different reasoning that U.S. Steel finds crucial to its case (SeAH Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT Consol. #19-00086).
The Court of International Trade sustained all of the Commerce Department's positions in a countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Canada, spurning a slew of litigants in the case ranging from the Canadian government to a U.S. wind tower trade group. In the March 18 opinion made public March 23, Judge Gary Katzmann sided with Commerce on all five issues under contention.
The Commerce Department failed to explain how a particular market situation existed for hot-rolled coil in the Indian market such that it affected antidumping duty respondents' costs of production, the Court of International Trade said in a March 11 opinion made public March 21. Judge Claire Kelly said that while Commerce identified market phenomena that could have distorted the price of HRC, the agency failed to show how the collective impact of these phenomena is unique to the Indian market and constitutes a PMS. Kelly also remanded Commerce's regression analysis used to adjust for the PMS, should the agency find that one still exists.
The Commerce Department properly picked an adverse facts available rate based on the financial data of one of the antidumping duty petitioner's parent companies in an AD investigation, the Court of International Trade said in a March 21 decision. Senior Judge Thomas Aquilino ruled that the arguments from plaintiffs Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon fall flat since they are based mainly on "their interpretation of outdated agency practices." The agency was not compelled to pick the highest AFA rate out there, the judge said.