The Court of International Trade on June 5 sustained some and remanded some of the Commerce Department's surrogate value picks in the 16th review of the antidumping duty order on Vietnamese catfish, covering entries in 2018 to 2019.
All plaintiffs filed a joint reply to the U.S. May 31 in a case regarding the number of Chinese-origin parts required for an entire wheel to be considered of Chinese origin -- rims, discs, or both -- under an antidumping duty order on steel trailer wheels (Asia Wheel v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 23-00096).
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to use India as its primary surrogate country on remand at the Court of International Trade in a case on the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam (Catfish Farmers of America v. United States, CIT Consol. # 20-00105).
A new rule that would impose a three-day deadline for certain responses to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. was unanimously criticized by several law firms, an industry group and the Chinese government, which said such a time frame doesn’t take into account the complex, time-consuming discussions companies must have when dealing with CFIUS. Some commenters also asked the committee to nix a proposed change that would raise the maximum penalty for violations from $250,000 per violation to $5 million, saying most violations are accidental, and the increase could rattle the “confidence” of foreign investors.
CBP continued to find that three importers evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China on remand at the Court of International Trade, after providing the companies with access to the confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT # 20-03914).
The Commerce Department on remand at the Court of International Trade reduced the antidumping duty rate for respondent Meihua Group International Trading (Hong Kong) from 154.07% to zero percent in the 2019-20 review of the AD order on xanthan gum from China. The agency reviewed its use of adverse facts available against the company due to the exporter's explanation that its U.S. duties and Section 301 duties are "subject to a possible recalculation" (Meihua Group International Trading (Hong Kong) v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00069).
The Court of International Trade was wrong to rule that imported calendar planners should be classified by CBP as diaries instead of calendars, the importer said in its opening brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 24 (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).
The Court of International Trade last week remanded the Commerce Department's finding that Germany's Konzessionsabgabenverordnung (KAV) program, which exempts a fee for gas and power pipeline companies that sell electricity below a certain price point that would otherwise be passed onto consumers, wasn't a specific subsidy. Judge Claire Kelly sent the case back for the fourth time, finding that the agency must further investigate whether an alleged subsidy is de facto specific when facts give "reasons to believe" the subsidy may be de facto specific.
The U.S. on May 24 pushed back against a petitioner’s claim that the Commerce Department allowed an exporter too much leeway in the first antidumping duty review of forged steel fluid end blocks from Italy (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00191).