The Commerce Department correctly reconsidered and changed its methodology used to calculate the constructed export price for Korean oil country tubular good exporter Hyundai Steel, the company said in its second set of remand comments at the Court of International Trade. Hyundai said Commerce correctly reversed its decision to base the calculation of constructed export price profit on Kuwaiti sales data of the other mandatory respondent, SeAH Steel, and instead used Hyundai’s own financial statements in its August remand results, where it dropped the company's dumping margin from 19.54% to 9.63% (see 2308160065) (Hyundai Steel Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 22-00138).
Consolidated plaintiffs in an antidumping case led by German exporter Salzgitter Mannesmann Grobblech asked the Court of International Trade to be severed from the joint AD matter given that its claims have been resolved by the court. In a Sept. 26 motion, Salzgitter said its case has "no overlap" with the one brought by lead plaintiff AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke and "it is likely that significant additional time will be required to reach a final judgment regarding the claims raised by Dillinger" (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 17-00158).
The Commerce Department's refusal to adjust its threshold for differentiating between different types of pasta as part of the duty calculation in the 2018-19 antidumping review of pasta from Italy violated the law, exporters La Molisana and Valdigrano di Flavio Pagani argued in their Sept. 26 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. La Molisana said Commerce's use of the "protein content on a FDA nutrition fact panel to determine protein content" ignores the different standards used in finding the number of grams of protein (La Molisana v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2060).
The Commerce Department incorrectly found that the South Korean government's provision of port-usage rights to countervailing duty respondent Hyundai Steel Co. was a countervailable benefit, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Hyundai built the port in exchange for the right to collect third-party fees, so the provision of port-usage rights might not be a benefit but rather a payment for "consideration," as used in contract law terms.
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 28 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the antidumping duty investigation of metal lockers from China. Previously, the court sustained Commerce's use of Turkey as the primary surrogate country but remanded the inclusion of rental income and treatment of interest income in calculating Turkish firm Ayes Celikhasir VE CT's profit as part of the surrogate value calculation. In its redetermination, the agency further explained how it treated shipping revenue, incentive income, interest income and rental income in setting the selling, general and administrative expense ratio. No party contested the remand results.
Trade attorney Julia Kuelzow has moved from Kelley Drye, where she worked as an associate, to Fenwick & West, where she now works as a trade and national security associate, per a notice at the Court of International Trade. At Fenwick, Kuelzow's practice centers on export controls and sanctions, shifting from her trade remedies work at Kelley Drye. Prior to working at Kelley Drye, Kuelzow served as a law clerk at CIT and as a junior dispute settlement lawyer at the World Trade Organization, according to her LinkedIn page.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department addressed "some of the distortions" in its earlier calculations on remand, but the department still undervalued the extent of dumping of multilayered wood flooring from China, the American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring coalition said in its Sept. 25 remand comments at the Court of International Trade (American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring v. U.S., CIT # 20-03948).
The Commerce Department correctly reexamined the "compensation for payment" expense and correctly declined to recalculate the antidumping duty rate for exporter Nagase on remand, DOJ said. In its Sept. 25 remand comments at the Court of International Trade, DOJ said that the final results in an AD administrative review on glycine from Japan fully complied with the remand order and Nagase can't show that the redetermination was unlawful (Nagase & Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00574).
The Court of International Trade should decline to follow another recent opinion regarding the statute of limitations on bond collection, due to "significant flaws" in its reasoning, DOJ said in a Sept. 25 reply at the Court of International Trade. That opinion in U.S. v. American Home Assurance Co. found that the six-year statute of limitations on customs bond collections ran from liquidation rather than the issuance of a bill (see 2308220054) (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance, CIT # 20-03628).