A recent Court of International Trade decision reviewing the Commerce Department's differential pricing methodology under Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is relevant to resolve a nearly identical claim in a separate case, the U.S. told the trade court in a notice of supplemental authority (Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00025).
Supporting its July motion for judgment (see 2407160051), Belgium citrate exporter Citribel again asked the Court of International Trade Dec. 6 to find that the Commerce Department’s refusal to conduct quarterly conversion cost analyses is unreasonable (Citribel v. U.S., CIT # 24-00010).
The Commerce Department failed to justify its de facto specificity finding regarding the South Korean government's provision of electricity below cost in the 2021 review of the countervailing duty order on cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Dec. 17. Judge Claire Kelly said Commerce didn't lay out a "rational basis" for grouping certain industries together and declaring that the selected industries received a disproportionate benefit from the program.
The Commerce Department failed to consider whether importer Hardware Resources' edge-glued wood boards were wood mouldings and millwork products when it included the goods in the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on wood mouldings and millwork products from China, the Court of International Trade held on Dec. 16. In his first decision since joining the court, Judge Joseph Laroski said Commerce "ignored the threshold question of whether the product at issue is a wood moulding or millwork product."
The Court of International Trade upheld Dec. 17 the Commerce Department’s decision to swap back to the model match methodology it had used earlier in a review of antidumping duty orders on superabsorbent polymers from South Korea. The change meant administrative review mandatory respondent LG Chem’s AD rate jumped back up, from 17.64% to 26.05%.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated between Dec. 4 and Dec. 6 with the following headquarters ruling (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
A three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit told the Court of International Trade that it has now twice wrongly told an importer that its first-sale price method to determine the duty level of its cookware was prohibited.
The Commerce Department erred in finding that respondent Habich and its U.S. sales agent aren't affiliated, as well as in its calculations of Habich's normal value based on its third-country sales to Mexico, petitioner Lumimove, doing business as WPC Technologies, argued. Filing a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 5, WPC said Commerce's failure to further investigate the alleged affiliation between Habich and its U.S. sales agent amounted to a "dereliction of duty" (Lumimove, Inc., d/b/a WPC Technologies v. U.S., CIT # 24-00105).
Chinese lidar company Hesai Technology on Dec. 9 filed a rebuke of its designation as a Chinese military company, urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to reverse the decision due to a host of alleged evidentiary and procedural errors. Hesai said the Pentagon, which recently relisted the company, "still cannot find a single connection to the Chinese military or defense industrial base" (Hesai Technology Co. v. U.S., D.D.C. # 24-01381).
The Commerce Department issued a final rule making various changes to its antidumping and countervailing duty procedures, notably altering its nonmarket economy policy in AD cases by allowing entities in third countries "owned or controlled" by nonmarket economies to be subject to the country-wide AD rate for that nation.