The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in a countervailing duty administrative review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey in an Aug. 18 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled against plaintiff Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi's motion for judgment, holding that Commerce permissibly rejected United Nations Comtrade and Eurostat data on natural gas imports from Russia in calculating a "tier-two benchmark" in its sales-below-cost analysis of Habas' natural gas prices. Katzmann also held that Commerce reasonably refused to use the Eurostat natural gas import data from Norway, Alberia, Libya and Ukraine in its "tier-three benchmark" calculations, while properly relying on IEA data for the tier-three calculations.
The Court of International Trade vacated a Commerce Department regulation establishing expedited reviews for countervailing duty investigations in an Aug. 18 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett, after issuing three other opinions in the case, upheld Commerce's finding that it couldn't find any alternative statutory basis on which to find that the regulation can exist. Barnett also nixed the expedited CVD reviews provided to some Canadian companies relating to the CVD order on certain softwood lumber from Canada. In doing so, Barnett ruled that companies deemed excluded from the CVD order due to the expedited reviews shall prospectively be reinstated as subject to it. Commerce shall also impose a cash deposit requirement based on the all-others rate from the investigation or the company-specific rate determined in the most recently completed administrative review in which the company was reviewed, Barnett said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Target's attempt to fight off the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss a customs case at the Court of International Trade falls flat, DOJ argued in an Aug. 13 reply brief. Following practices codified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, CIT properly ordered the reliquidation of improperly liquidated ironing tables from China, DOJ said, backing the court's authority to do so (Target Corp. v. U.S., CIT #21-00162).
The Commerce Department does not need to "poll the industry" to find out if over half of the domestic industry supports an antidumping or countervailing duty petition, Judge Leo Gordon of the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 16 letter. Responding to consolidated plaintiff M S International's request for a remand directing Commerce to poll the industry or "collect additional information establishing whether there was industry support" for the contested AD/CVD petition, Gordon said this request stemmed from a misunderstanding of the law (Pokarna Engineered Stone Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-00127).
Antidumping petitioner U.S. Steel Corporation and the two mandatory respondents in the contested antidumping duty review, SeAH Steel Co. and NEXTEEL Co., submitted their comments on the Commerce Department's remand results at the Court of International Trade. U.S. Steel spoke out against Commerce's flip on its finding of a particular market situation for South Korean steel while the respondents argued against the agency's reallocation of suspended product line and inventory valuation losses to general and administrative expenses and Commerce's decision to deduct a portion of SeAH's G&A expenses of a U.S. affiliate for further manufacturing costs (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood will appeal a Court of International Trade opinion in an anti-circumvention inquiry involving antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the coalition said in a notice of appeal. In the case, the Commerce Department eventually came to find that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports from China were not later-developed merchandise and therefore did not circumvent the AD/CVD orders (see 2107210028). The coalition was the petitioner for the anti-circumvention inquiry and served as the defendant-intervenor in the CIT case (Shelter Forest International Acquisition, Inc. et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #19-00212).
The U.S. will appeal a Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's drop of a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test in an antidumping duty review. In an Aug. 13 filing, the U.S. gave notice of its intent to appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The case was brought by Turkish steel company Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret, which challenged an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey (see 2106170026). Judge Jane Restani ruled that Commerce improperly applied a PMS adjustment in the below-cost test, finding that such adjustments are only allowed when calculating normal value based on constructed value, as opposed to normal value based on home market sales (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. et al v. United States, CIT, Slip Op. 21-75, #20-00015).
Mexican steel company Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. and its U.S. affiliate moved to stay proceedings in its case at the Court of International Trade pending the appeal of a related matter at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 12 stay motion. Deacero wants action halted in its case until the Universal Steel Prod., Inc. et al. v. U.S. case has a decision at the Federal Circuit. While Deacero's case challenges the Commerce Department's findings in an antidumping duty review on the grounds that the agency's treatment of Section 232 duties paid by Deacero as ordinary customs duties and deduction from U.S. price are unsupported, the Universal Steel case has broader implications and would eliminate the need for Deacero to litigate the claims.