DOJ attorney Robert Kiepura replaced Joshua Kurland as principal counsel in a case on the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Canada. The court approved the change in a Feb. 8 order (Quebec v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1807).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 order vacated the dismissals of seven cases brought by Canadian exporter ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada G.P. Judge Timothy Stanceu reinstated the cases on the Customs Case Management Calendar and said they can remain there until Jan. 31, 2025 (ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada G.P. v. United States, CIT # 21-00037, -00038, -00039, -00040, -00041, -00042, -00043).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to use a simple average of standard deviations in the denominator of Cohens d test for detecting "masked" dumping as part of the antidumping investigation of steel nails from Taiwan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has remanded this decision twice, finding that the academic literature relies on a weighted average. On remand, Commerce said the literature uses a simple average when the sample sizes are equal and that the standard deviation of a full population is "in fact the actual standard deviation." Because the agency used the full population of data in using the Cohen's d test, using a simple average is supported, Judge Claire Kelly said.
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security again rejected 193 requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties sought by importer California Steel Industries on its steel slab imports. Filing its remand results to the Court of International Trade on Feb. 9, BIS said that "no overriding national security concerns require that" the exclusions be granted (California Steel Industries v. United States, CIT # 21-00015).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's final results of the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on retail bags from Malaysia. Judge Stephen Vaden upheld Commerce's use of adverse facts available to set inland freight expense data for U.S. sales the agency found to be unverifiable, as well as the decision not to correct a ministerial error on the grounds that notice of the error was untimely. The court said Commerce gave exporter Euro SME multiple chances to submit verifiable data after the agency found errors in the company's actual weight and inland freight data, making the use of AFA proper due to the resulting gaps in the record.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department continued to give Indian exporter Bharat Forge Limited a 0% dumping rate after conducting on-site verification for the first time on remand. Submitting its remand results to the Court of International Trade on Feb. 7, Commerce said the on-site verification led to a host of revisions to the agency's margin calculations, though the end result was ultimately the same for the company (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00007).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to "refuse to reopen" the issue of exporter Double Coin's eligibility for a separate antidumping duty rate in a suit returned to the appellate court after the company failed to raise the issue on its first visit to the Federal Circuit (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 8, in a case brought by domestic petitioners, sustained the Commerce Department’s finding that a Chinese wood flooring exporter that had refused to participate as a 2018-2019 antidumping duty review’s mandatory respondent was still eligible for separate rate status. But the court's decision to allow Commerce to use adverse facts available against the exporter meant the review’s non-individually investigated separate rate respondents saw their rates jump from zero percent to 42.57%.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: