The U.S. and steel slab importer NLMK Pennsylvania on April 4 settled the importer’s 2021 case contesting the Commerce Department’s denial of its 58 exclusion requests that certain steel articles be excluded from Section 232 duties (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 21-0507).
The Court of International Trade on April 4 upheld the Commerce Department's use of the invoice date rather than the contract date for the date of sale for respondents Kaptan Demir and Colakoglu Metalurji in the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey.
The Court of International Trade on April 3 again sent back the Commerce Department's decision to countervail exporter KG Dongbu Steel's three debt-to-equity restructurings after initially declining to countervail them in the preceding three countervailing duty reviews on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 4 sustained the Commerce Department's decision that Australian exporter BlueScope Steel (AIS) didn't reimburse its affiliated U.S. importer, BlueScope Steel Americas, for antidumping duties. Judges Kimberly Moore, Todd Hughes and Leonard Stark echoed the Court of International Trade in finding that it would have been "unreasonable" for the exporter to include the AD in the price charged to the importer because the "exporter itself was not responsible for those duties."
Court of International Trade Judge Gary Katzmann heard oral arguments April 1 in an Australian hot-rolled steel exporter’s challenge of an International Trade Commission's decision in an injury investigation to cumulate that exporter’s products with merchandise from other countries. The exporter argues that it also has invested $2.5 million into a U.S. manufacturing plant, so it has no incentive to injure its own domestic market (BlueScope Steel v. U.S., CIT # 22-00353).
Importer Blockstream Services USA on April 3 moved to set aside the Court of International Trade's April 1 order dismissing its tariff classification challenge for failure to prosecute (see 2404020013) (Blockstream Services USA v. U.S., CIT # 22-00101).
An exporter alleged April 2 that the Commerce Department omitted “critical” pieces of evidence from the administrative record the agency filed with the Court of International Trade in a case involving a 2023 anti-circumvention inquiry on solar cells from Vietnam (Red Sun Energy Long An Company Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00229).
The Court of International Trade on April 4 sustained the Commerce Department's 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey. Judge Jane Restani said Commerce's use of the invoice date as the date of sale instead of the contract date for both respondents, Kaptan Demir and Colakoglu Metalurji, was properly supported. The judge said evidence from past reviews supports using the invoice date. She said terms of the contract permitted deviation in a material term and the quantities listed on the invoice were "materially different from those in the contract."
Countervailing duty petitioner Rebar Trade Action Coalition opened its case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit against the Commerce Department's decision on remand finding that shipbuilding company Nur Gemicilik ve Tic, an affiliate of respondent Kaptan Demir, is not Kaptan's cross-owned input supplier. Filing an opening brief on April 2, the petitioner said that Commerce originally got it right in cross-attributing Nur's subsidies to Kaptan in the 2018 CVD review on rebar from Turkey (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1431).
The Court of International Trade on April 3 again sent back the Commerce Department's decision to countervail exporter KG Dongbu's three debt-to-equity swaps after initially declining to countervail them in the preceding three countervailing duty reviews on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce can't reverse its countervailability decisions without new information. The judge also remanded Commerce's decision to pass-through benefits from the three debt-to-equity restructurings to KG Dongbu after its ownership changed between the prior three and present reviews, along with the agency's calculation of the company's creditworthiness benchmark and unequityworthy discount rate.