The Court of International Trade again remanded the Commerce Department's remand results in the 2018 review of the countervailing duty order on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from South Korea, in an April 19 confidential opinion. In a letter to the litigants, Judge Mark Barnett gave the parties until April 26 to review the confidential information in the opinion. Barnett said Commerce shall "reconsider or further explain" its decision not to investigate the off-peak sale of electricity allegedly for less than adequate remuneration.
The Court of International Trade on April 19 sent back the International Trade Commission's decision to cumulate imports of oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Argentina, Mexico, Russia and South Korea, in part because the commission failed to take into account the effect of U.S. sanctions on Russia in assessing whether the Russian goods compete at the same level of competition as the good from the other nations.
A manufacturer must have attributed to them all subsidies received by a cross-owned input supplier’s upstream product that is “primarily dedicated to the production of the downstream product,” a domestic petitioner said in an April 17 brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It also argued that the “downstream product” doesn’t need to be “subject merchandise” (Gujarat Fluorochemicals v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1268).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed the government's appeal of a Court of International Trade decision scrapping a customs bond penalty action against surety firm American Home Assurance Co. The U.S. voluntarily dismissed the case (see 2404170042) (U.S. v. American Home Assurance Co., Fed. Cir. # 24-1069).
Alpinestars, an Italian exporter of motorcycle safety apparel, brought a short complaint to the Court of International Trade on April 18 (Alpinestars, SPA v. U.S., CIT # 11-00007).
The Commerce Department misapplied the presumption of foreign state control by framing it as a burden on antidumping and countervailing duty respondents to "completely disprove potential government control," exporter Guizhou Tyre Co. argued in an April 18 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2165).
The Court of International Trade on April 19 sent back the Commerce Department's pick of Brazil as the primary surrogate country, and the use of Brazilian and Malaysian surrogate value data, in the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. After already remanding once for Commerce's failure to cite evidence in making its surrogate choices, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said she "must now remand again for the same failure."
The Court of International Trade on April 22 remanded parts of the Commerce Department's 2015 expedited review of the countervailing duty order on softwood lumber products from Canada. Judge Mark Barnett sent back the agency's decision not to account for subsidies received by lumber suppliers to the CVD respondents and its decision to use exporter Fontaine's 2014 fiscal year tax returns to conduct benefit calculations for the 2015 review period. Barnett sustained Commerce's instructions to CBP to liquidate entries from companies that received de minimis rates without regard to CV duties, along with the agency's finding that Canadian and Quebecois logging tax credits were countervailable benefits.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. on April 17 filed for partial reconsideration of a Court of International Trade judgment that held the government waited too long to make a demand for payment under a customs bond, violating an "implied contractual term." The government said that it couldn't have "anticipated raising or discussing the issue" of an "implied contractual term of a reasonable time for demand," so it seeks to "do so here" (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT # 20-03628).