The Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government provided a countervailable subsidy via the provision of carbon emission permits to exporter Hyundai Steel violates the law, Hyundai argued in a July 5 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Since the requirement to buy carbon emission permits places a cost on the company, and the Korean government didn't forgo revenue by providing an additional permit allocation to Hyundai, the provision of the permits doesn't constitute a countervailable benefit, the complaint said (Hyundai Steel v. U.S., CIT #22-00170).
The Commerce Department erred by selecting Brazil as the primary surrogate country in an antidumping duty review then using log input data from Malaysia, exporter Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. said in a July 7 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Senmao also contested Commerce's decision to deny the exporter a byproduct offset, revise the Brazilian surrogate value data for plywood and select Brazil as the primary surrogate while rejecting its log data, adjusting the plywood data and revising the financial ratios (Jiangsu Senmoa Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00190).
The Commerce Department submitted its remand results July 5 in an antidumping duty review challenge originally brought by Risen Energy Co. at the Court of International Trade. Commerce switched its positions on applying adverse facts available over unreported factors of production data -- reverting to neutral facts available -- and on how to value silver paste using Malaysian surrogate data. The agency stuck by its positions, though, on how to value backsheets and ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA) using surrogate data. The latter two positions remain contested by the plaintiffs, but they consented to Commerce's switch on the FOP data and silver paste (Risen Energy Co., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03743).
The Court of International Trade properly held that President Donald Trump violated the law by revoking an exclusion on bifacial solar panels from the Section 201 safeguard duties, plaintiff-appellees led by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Invenergy Renewables said in two reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. SEIA, in its brief, along with Nextera Energy, argued that the trade court correctly found that "all the tools of statutory construction" show that the law prevents trade-restrictive changes to the safeguard measure (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1392).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
CBP improperly classified wearable blankets in contravention of its own guidance, said Cozy Comfort in a June 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Cozy Comfort v. U.S., #22-00173). The agency's rate advance ran counter to its own guidance that sherpa-lined garments are not classifiable in heading 6110.
A host of U.S. mattress producers and trade unions argued in a July 1 brief that the International Trade Commission's final affirmative injury determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on imported mattresses should be upheld at the Court of International Trade.
The Court of International Trade in a July 6 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to grant a level-of-trade (LOT) adjustment for antidumping duty respondent Productos Laminados de Monterrey S.A. de C.V. (Prolamsa). Judge Timothy Stanceu sustained the LOT adjustment that Commerce made following the judge's initial remand order. The court ruled that petitioner Nucor Tubular Products' arguments that the higher selling expenses for one avenue of Prolamsa's trade were due to higher manufacturing costs and not higher selling expenses were "entirely speculative, if not illogical."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 6 opinion ruled that the Commerce Department didn't err in using total adverse facts available rates to calculate the all-others rate in an antidumping duty review on steel nails from China. While the law bars the use of total AFA when calculating the all-others rate in AD investigations, it makes no mention of AD reviews, so the question is deferred to Commerce, the court said. The appellate court said Commerce was right to use partial AFA on respondent Dezhou Hualude Hardware Products over its main supplier's transshipment scheme.
The Supreme Court's landmark ruling June 30 that curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's power to issue regulations intended to counter climate change is unlikely to have ramifications for trade cases at the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but there is a chance some trade actions with a larger scope could be affected, trade lawyers said in recent days.