The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in an Aug. 31 opinion that the Commerce Department properly rejected cold-drawn mechanical tubing exporter Goodluck India's questionnaire corrections in an antidumping investigation. Reversing a Court of International Trade's decision, a three-judge panel said that Goodluck's corrections weren't "minor." The reversal led to a 33.8% dumping margin for Goodluck, which had been assigned a zero percent rate following the CIT decision.
Court of International Trade activity
An extension of the time of service in a penalty action against the owner and director of importer Atria, Kevin Ho, should not be granted, counsel for Ho argued in an Aug. 25 reply brief at the Court of International Trade, also pushing for the case to be dismissed. The U.S. served Ho's counsel with the wrong summons and complaint and cannot prove excusable neglect in its service, Ho argued (United States v. Chu-Chiang "Kevin" Ho, et al., CIT #19-00038).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 30 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade remanded an antidumping case to the Commerce Department after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the trade court's initial ruling in an Aug. 26 order. The Federal Circuit had on July 20 backed Commerce's initial decision to adjust a Turkish pipe exporter's post-sale price by only one-third of a late delivery penalty, finding that the adjustment was supported by substantial evidence (see 2107200038). CIT erred in leading Commerce to adjust the post-sale price by the entirety of the penalty cost since the customer was not aware of the methodology by which the amount of the penalty was to be determined. Commerce has 45 days to file the remand, and any objections can be filed 20 days after the redetermination submission (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #19-00056).
The Commerce Department will reconsider its application of facts available in a countervailing duty review pursuant to its own voluntary remand request, the Court of International Trade ordered in an Aug. 27 decision. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said the remand was warranted since it will allow Commerce the opportunity to "cure its own mistakes and reconsider the substantive issues," raised by plaintiff and respondent Hyundai Steel Company.
The Commerce Department stuck with its application of facts available in remand results filed at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 25 despite a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision finding that such reliance on the current data was inappropriate. Seeing as no other data was available than respondent Dillinger France's books and records, Commerce said it had to rely on them despite their deficiencies (Dillinger France S.A. v. United States, CIT #17-00159).
The Court of International Trade granted partial judgment in an antidumping case on Aug. 26, holding that the Commerce Department legally included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited in the dumping calculation. Judge Leo Gordon originally made the call on Aug. 25, but issued Friday's decision of partial judgment to finalize the decision, seeing as there are other lingering issues still being litigated in the case.
The Commerce Department has to reconsider two scope rulings that found that certain flanges are subject to the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China. In two decisions, the Court of International Trade said that Commerce either misinterpreted evidence or failed to consider all the relevant evidence when deciding that flanges from MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, and Star Pipe Products are subject to the antidumping duty order.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: