Two former senior advisers from the Commerce Department, Sahar Hafeez and Julian Beach, have joined Pillsbury Winthrop in the regulatory business unit and international trade practice, the firm announced. Hafeez rejoins the firm as senior counsel after serving in various roles at Commerce and the White House, most recently as senior adviser to the assistant secretary for industry and analysis at Commerce. Beach joins the firm as special counsel, most recently working as senior adviser and chief-of-staff for enforcement and compliance at Commerce.
Countervailing duty petitioner Nucor Corp. will appeal a Court of International Trade case on whether the Commerce Department can countervail three debt-to-equity infusions made to exporter KG Dongbu Steel Co. in the 2019 CVD review on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea. In the case, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce couldn't countervail the D/E swaps after previously refusing to do so in the prior CVD reviews, without finding a mistake of fact or analysis (see 2407030073). The judge then upheld the agency's decision not to countervail the restructurings on remand, finding that the evidence didn't support finding that the South Korean government pressured non-governmental institutions to take part in debt restructuring (see 2501170044) (KG Dongbu Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00047).
In its opposition to a reconsideration request in a vehicle sidebar classification case, the U.S. “misleads” the court by claiming that exporter Keystone Automotives was attempting to relitigate its position. Actually, the exporter said, its request is “based on the standard of review of the tariff exclusion” Keystone had relied on in its initial arguments (Keystone Automotive Operations v. U.S., CIT # 21-00215).
Defendant-intervenor Dixon Ticonderoga on Jan. 28 joined the Commerce Department in opposing pencil importer School Specialty’s scope ruling challenge before the Court of International Trade (School Specialty v. United States, CIT # 24-00098).
The Commerce Department's antidumping duty order on artist canvas from China is "void-for-vagueness and unconstitutional," importer Printing Textiles, doing business as Berger Textiles, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its opening brief. The company argued that Commerce's "impermissibly unlawful" scope ruling including its canvas banner matisse within the scope of the order "denied Berger adequate notice," adding that the agency "failed to address due process concerns of vague language in the scope of the order" (Printing Textiles v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1213).
The Commerce Department reasonably found that holding company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy S.A. is an "exporter or producer" under its regulations in an antidumping duty investigation on wind towers from Spain, the Court of International Trade held on Jan. 28. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the agency appropriately considered the evidence and rejected petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition's position that Siemens Gamesa didn't have a role in the production of wind towers and, thus, didn't have to rescind the investigation on the company.
Two multilayered wood flooring exporters, Baroque Industries and Riverside Plywood, said Jan. 23 that the Commerce Department wrongly applied adverse facts available to several of Baroque’s input suppliers, determining they were under government control even though “[n]ecessary information for these eighteen suppliers was not missing from the record” (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00106).
After the Trump administration released a memo outlining the scope of trade action to be taken during his term, one thing became clear, according to a variety of trade attorneys: antidumping duty and countervailing duty rates are about to soar.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand to drop the use of total adverse facts available against exporter Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora, with Apiario Diamante Producao e Comercial de Mel known as Supermel, in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from Brazil. The result saw Supermel's AD rate drop from 83.72% to 10.52%.
Colombian shopping bag exporter Ditar and domestic petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Shopping Bags each filed a motion for judgment in their respective cases challenging the results of the same antidumping duty investigation. Ditar, a mandatory respondent, argued the Commerce Department had been required to make a level-of-trade adjustment between its U.S. and home markets, while the Coalition alleged Ditar’s records were unreliable (Ditar v. United States, CIT # 24-00130; Coalition for Fair Trade in Shopping Bags v. United States, CIT # 24-00157).