The Commerce Department has failed to rebut importer M S International's position that the agency failed to get adequate industry support to initiate its antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on quartz surface products from India, the importer told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a May 11 reply brief. Commerce failed to take into account QSP fabricators in the domestic industry support conclusion, MSI said. In fact, the statute does not allow Commerce to label manufacturers as responsible for "production processes" that create covered merchandise and then allow the agency to exclude them from the domestic support question through a filter of "production-related activities" test, the brief said (Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1077).
The Commerce Department properly found affiliated antidumping duty respondents Ghigi 1870 and Pasta Zara failed to cooperate to the best of their ability in reporting the U.S. payment dates for their pasta sales, the Court of International Trade ruled in a May 4 opinion made public May 13. Returning to the trade court to further explain its use of an adverse inference, Commerce said Ghigi's and Zara's errors in reporting their U.S. payment dates was due to "inattention and carelessness." Judge Richard Eaton agreed, upholding the remand.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department's decision to accept mandatory antidumping duty respondent Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited's method for reporting its U.S. movement expenses was illegal, U.S. manufacturer Daikin America argued in a May 12 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Gujarat Fluorochemicals' ignored Commerce's instructions to report its sales expenses on a transaction-specific basis, which should have prompted the use of adverse facts available, the complaint said (Daikin America v. United States, CIT #22-00122).
The "text, structure, purpose, and history" of the Section 201 statute all reveal that Congress did not intend for the Court of International Trade's strict reading of the president's authority to modify safeguard duties, the U.S. argued in its May 11 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DOJ is fighting to reverse a ruling at CIT that found that the law only permits trade liberalizing alterations to existing safeguard measures (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1392).
The Court of International Trade told the Commerce Department in a May 12 opinion that if it doesn't appeal its position on China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, it must explain why the court should not provide some sort of "equitable relief" including an injunction on the continued imposition of countervailing duties on the program. Judge Jane Restani also remanded Commerce's positions relating to its land value and ocean freight benchmarks while upholding the agency's specificity finding for the subsidization of energy in China.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The plain language of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China clearly excludes exporter China Custom Manufacturing's solar panel mount assemblies as extrusions fully assembled after importation, CCM along with importer Greentec Engineering argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Since there is no part of the plain language of the order that says a part of plaintiff-appellants' EcoFasten system cannot qualify for the finished merchandise exclusion, the solar panel mounts qualify for the exclusion, the brief said (China Custom Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1345).
The Commerce Department's remand results finding that a South Korean authority did not provide electricity below cost in a countervailing duty investigation does not properly apply an "adequate remuneration" standard, plaintiff-appellant Nucor Corp. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Filing its opening brief in its appeal, Nucor said that while Commerce does identify an adequate remuneration standard that could address the Federal Circuit's prior holding on the agency's sole reliance on a preferential rates analysis, the standard is not properly applied (POSCO v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1525).
The Commerce Department improperly, and knowingly, double-counted Chinese exporter Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products Co.'s dumping margin in the 2019-2020 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube, Ailong argued in a May 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce admitted as much, recognizing that Malaysian surrogate value data used for square tube, just one factor of production, included further processed square tube and the raw square tube used by Ailong, the exporter said (Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #22-00116).