The Court of International Trade, in a June 13 decision made public June 24, sustained the Commerce Department's second review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel from Australia. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce found that exporter BlueScope Steel (AIS) didn't reimburse its affiliated U.S. importer, BlueScope Steel Americas, for antidumping duties, heavily basing this conclusion on an identical U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision issued in April. Eaton also said Commerce properly declined to make an additional deduction for the constructed export price profit.
On June 17, a convicted smuggler of dangerously bright vehicle headlights asked the Court of International Trade, on behalf of both himself and the U.S., for another three-month extension to continue negotiating the terms of a stipulated judgment in a customs penalty case (U.S. v. Chu-Chiang "Kevin" Ho, CIT # 19-00102).
The Court of International Trade on June 18 issued an order regarding the bench trial, set for Oct. 21, in a customs case brought by importer Cozy Comfort Co. on its wearable blanket, the Comfy. To prepare for the trial, Judge Stephen Vaden set a pretrial conference for Sept. 19 and told the parties to conduct a "good faith attempt to settle this matter and avoid trial" (Cozy Comfort Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00173).
The Commerce Department ignored the rulings in past cases when it reached de facto and de jure specificity findings regarding two broadly used Korean government programs, a Korean steel exporter said in a motion for judgment June 17 (POSCO v. U.S., CIT # 24-00006).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential June 18 decision sustained parts and remanded parts of the Commerce Department's second review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. The court gave the parties until June 25 to review the confidential information in the decision (YC Rubber Co. (North America) v. U.S., CIT # 19-00069).
Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif, during June 13 oral argument, expressed skepticism at Turkish exporter Erdemir's bid to stay in court under Section 1581(i) in its case challenging the International Trade Commission's decision not to hold a reconsideration proceeding regarding whether Turkish hot-rolled steel flat products injured the U.S. market (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. U.S. International Trade Commission, CIT Consol. # 22-00349).
The Court of International Trade on June 20 said that the Commerce Department's amended antidumping duty finding, excluding Turkish exporter Colakoglu from the AD order on hot-rolled steel from Turkey, doesn't invalidate the International Trade Commission's five-year sunset review of the order.
Importer Vecoplan on June 17 dismissed one of its customs cases at the Court of International Trade regarding the classification of its grinding machines (Vecoplan v. United States, CIT # 20-00106).
After two remands by Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves, the Commerce Department continued to sustain its use of Brazilian and Malaysian surrogate data in the final results of its 2019-2020 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China, again assigning a plaintiff exporter a 16.17% AD margin (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00190).
A Turkish rebar exporter and the government held oral arguments last week over the countervailability of a Turkish subsidy that Court of International Trade Judge Gary Katzmann implied could be considered de jure, but not de facto, specific. They also debated the reliability of a report on land benchmark prices that was prepared specifically for litigation and that included government rates (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #23-00131).