Solar panel exporter MS Solar Investments is seeking targeted discovery of documents relating to the liquidation of its solar panel exports to determine if decisions made by CBP and the Commerce Department were erroneous, MS Solar said in a Sept. 22 letter to the Court of International Trade (MS Solar Investments, LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00303).
The Labor Department's decision to continue to find that a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees are not entitled to trade adjustment assistance for outsourced jobs gives a "half-baked analysis" of the situation, the workers said in a Sept. 20 filing at the Court of International Trade. The plaintiffs accused the agency of failing to ever fully grapple with contradicting evidence on the record in its remand results (Communications Workers of America Local 4123, on behalf of Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc. v. United States Secretary of Labor, CIT #20-00075).
The Commerce Department cannot make a particular market situation adjustment in the sales-below-cost test when calculating normal value, the Court of International Trade again ruled in a Sept. 23 opinion. Pointing to multiple CIT rulings reaching the same conclusion (see 2107210065), Judge Gary Katzmann said that since the statute in one section has language permitting a PMS adjustment but excludes it in the section on normal value adjustments, Commerce could not make the PMS adjustment. Katzmann also said that even if such an adjustment were allowed, Commerce did not provide enough evidence that a PMS existed.
The Court of International Trade sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's second remand results in a case over the antidumping duty administrative review of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China in a Sept. 24 order. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves found that Commerce's denial of separate rate status to Pirelli Tyre Co. during the first ten months of the review period was unreasonable, because the company was not Chinese government-controlled for that part of the period of review. Choe-Groves also sustained Commerce's decision to drop a downward adjustment for irrecoverable value-added tax to mandatory respondent Qingdao Sentury Tire Co.'s export price.
A company challenging CBP's finding that it evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on xanthan gum should have its lawsuit tossed because it failed to appeal CBP's denial of its protest on the relevant entries, even though the importer filed its case under CIT's Section 1581(c) jurisdiction, which covers AD/CVD proceedings, the Department of Justice said in a Sept. 22 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (All One God Faith, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00164).
The Court of International Trade remanded an antidumping case to the Commerce Department for a fourth time, finding that the agency's method for finding an all-others dumping rate was unreasonable. The court issued the opinion in a case over the AD duty investigation of hardwood plywood products from China in which the agency assigned the two mandatory respondents a zero percent and 114.72% adverse facts available rate. When finding the all-others rate, Commerce then departed from the expected method -- a move upheld by the court -- and averaged the two rates to get to a 57.36% all-others rate. CIT said rate was based on only one commercial invoice from the AD petition and not reasonably reflective of the all-other respondents' dumping margins.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in the antidumping duty investigation of certain quartz surface products from China, in Sept. 24 opinion. Judge Leo Gordon upheld Commerce's selection of Mexico as the primary surrogate country over Malaysia for the purposes of calculating normal value. Seeing as the plaintiffs needed to prove that Malaysia was the "one and only reasonable surrogate country selection" in order for the court to justify the switch, Gordon ruled in favor of Commerce since the plaintiffs failed to make this demonstration, the opinion said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Commission's final negative injury determination in its antidumping and countervailing duty investigation of fabricated structural steel from Canada, China and Mexico, in a Sept. 22 confidential opinion. Judge Claire Kelly handed down the result, and plans to publish the public opinion on Sept. 30, she said in a letter to the litigants. The parties have until Sept. 29 to review information that's not already bracketed that should be bracketed and the already-bracketed information to make sure no confidential information is released to the public (Full Member Subgroup of the American Institute of Steel Construction, LLC v. United States, CIT #20-00090).
The International Trade Commission ignored that the domestic tire industry was profitable when it made its determination that passenger vehicle and light truck tires from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam were harming the domestic industry, plaintiffs led by Sentury Tire (Thailand) Co. said in a Sept. 17 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Sentury also argued that the commission failed to properly consider the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the domestic industry (Sentury Tire (Thailand) Co. Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00439).