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CIT Sends Back Rejection of LOT Adjustment, Upholds Use of Expected Method in Pair of Opinions

The Court of International Trade issued a pair of opinions on July 15. In one, Judge Timothy Stanceu sent back the Commerce Department's final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded steel pipe products from the United Arab Emirates. Stanceu ruled that Commerce's decision to deny plaintiffs, led by Universal Tube and Plastic Industries, a level-of-trade adjustment was based on unsatisfactory analysis "when viewed according to the statutory criteria and the record evidence on the whole."

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In a second opinion, Judge Mark Barnett upheld the Commerce Department's use of the expected method in the calculation of non-selected respondents' rate in the AD duty review of steel nails from Taiwan. Following three remands, Commerce gave two respondents a total adverse facts available rate, a third respondent a zero percent margin, then a weighted average of these rates to the non-selected respondents. Barnett upheld this methodology -- "the so-called expected method" -- finding it supported by substantial evidence.