The Commerce Department is barred by law from beginning any new antidumping duty investigations less than two years after it completed an AD investigation on the same product, an importer argued Jan. 22 in the Court of International Trade (Wabtec Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00160).
The U.S. moved to dismiss a complaint from solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy at the Court of International Trade challenging the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Southeast Asian countries found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these goods from China (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 denied a U.S. request for a voluntary remand to reconsider due process issues in an Enforce and Protect Act case involving cast iron soil pipe imports by Phoenix Metal, in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China.
The National Marine Fisheries Service made a new comparability finding that two New Zealand fisheries have comparable marine mammal bycatch protections to U.S. fisheries, and may be listed on the agency’s List of Foreign Fisheries eligible for import into the U.S., NMFS said in a notice released Jan. 22.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 22 issued its mandate in a pair of cases seeking to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions. In the suits, the appellate court sustained the dismissal of the cases for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that a protest must have been filed with CBP to properly effectuate relief. The Court of International Trade initially said jurisdiction was not to be had under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since the court would have had jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) had a protest been filed (see 2209060035). The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the true nature of the suits contests CBP's assessment of the duties and not the U.S. Trade Representative's decision to grant an exclusion, even though the exclusions were granted after the deadline for filing a protest had lapsed (ARP Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2176) (The Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2177).
The Commerce Department repeatedly relied on an analysis in several administrative reviews that the courts had already struck down, an exporter of Indian carbon steel welded pipe said in a Jan.19 brief responding to comments made by DOJ and domestic petitioners regarding its own motion for summary judgment (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China. Judge M. Miller Baker relied on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. U.S. to reject claims from exporters HLDS (B) Steel and HLD Clark Steel Pipe against Commerce's comparison of their production of oil pipe in Brunei and the Philippines to the production of hot-rolled steel, an oil piping input, in China. The Federal Circuit already found that Commerce can make the comparison because the agency indicated what part of the total value of the goods subject to the inquiries is accounted for by the last step of processing and found that the level of investment is much greater for the production of hot-rolled steel than for oil piping, Baker noted.
The U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit has consistently permitted the Commerce Department's use of its non-market economy policy in antidumping cases, the U.S. told the appellate court in a Jan. 18 opening brief. Appealing a Court of International Trade decision calling into question the NME policy, the government argued that "Congress has afforded Commerce wide latitude in how it enforces and implements" the AD statute and "this Court has consistently sustained Commerce's exercise of this discretion, in the absence of unambiguous statutory direction" (Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2245).