The U.S.'s opposition to a rehearing motion from a Chinese aluminum extrusion exporter and its affiliates over their alternative arguments in a countervailing duty case falls flat, the company and its affiliates said in an April 25 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Taizhou United Imp. & Exp. Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #16-00009). DOJ argued against the rehearing bid, claiming that the alternative claims were waived since they were not brought up during remand. The plaintiff-intervenors, all associated with Jangho Group, replied that the court said it would address a separate issue first, then move to the alternate claims. The court's failure to do so warrants a rehearing, the brief said.
Steel exporter SeAH Steel Corp. wants a full court rehearing over a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion that found reasonable the Commerce Department's practice of capping freight revenue when calculating U.S. price. Filing a motion for rehearing on April 25, SeAH said that the statute is not ambiguous on when U.S. price may be adjusted for freight costs seeing as it does not permit any adjustments for freight cost when the starting price does not include freight (NEXTEEL Co., Ltd. v. United States, CAFC # 21-1334)
The Commerce Department properly modified the scope of its antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigations on quartz surface products from China in response to evidence of evasion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in an April 25 opinion. Building materials company Bruskin International argued against Commerce's decision to accept the petitioner's scope request, telling the court the agency should have treated it as a request to amend the petition. But Judges Todd Hughes, Haldane Mayer and Kara Stoll ruled that Commerce was not bound to the preliminary scope and that it properly found the scope to be defective due to evidence of evasion.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
While antidumping duty respondent Goodluck India Limited does not oppose DOJ's motion to partially dismiss its case, it wants the Court of International Trade to find jurisdiction for its case under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction. Responding to the partial dismissal motion in an April 22 reply brief, Goodluck used the opportunity to also characterize the U.S. government's statement of facts as "inaccurate" (Goodluck India Limited v. United States, CIT #22-00024).
The Court of International Trade should not grant a stay in a consolidated antidumping matter pending resolution of a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit since the impact of this case is "speculative at best," DOJ said in an April 21 reply brief. Further, the stay should be denied since the Federal Circuit case, Stupp Corp. v. United States, may only affect two legal issues in the case led by exporter Koehler Paper, leaving six issues unaffected, DOJ argued (Matra Americas v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00632).
Producing a large volume of evidence does not establish the relevance or persuasiveness of such evidence, plaintiff Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee said in an April 19 brief blasting the Commerce Department's evidentiary record in an antidumping duty and countervailing duty exclusion case. Merely handing over a list of record information does not substitute for an explanation of how the evidence supports the exclusion finding, AEFTC said (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. United States, CIT #21-00253).
The defendant-intervenors in an antidumping duty case, Insteel Wire Products Co., Sumiden Wire Products Corp. and Wire Mesh Corp., signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results at the Court of International Trade applying partial adverse facts available. The remand results accepted certain of Turkish exporter Celik Halat's questionnaire responses that it originally denied due to being filed 21 minutes late. The result dropped Commerce's use of total AFA to partial AFA (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi v. United States, CIT #21-00045).
International law firm Latham & Watkins moved to withdraw as counsel for Russian bank VTB Bank in a case over attacks that brought down a commercial airplane over Ukraine in 2014, seeing as the firm "is in the process of ending its engagement with VTB on multiple matters." Concurrently filing a letter to Judge Gabriel Gorenstein at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District for New York, Latham's Christopher Harris said that he wanted a stay of discovery until new counsel can be found for VTB (Schansman, et al. v. Sberbank of Russia PJSC, S.D.N.Y. #19-02985).
The Commerce Department erred in its de jure and de facto specificity findings in a forged steel fluid end blocks countervailing duty case on climate change compliance programs from the German government and the EU, exporter BGH Edelstahl Siegen argued in an April 20 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The agency did not prove that the alleged subsidies were expressly limited to an enterprise or industry, precluding a de jure specificity finding, the brief said (BGH Edelstahl Siegen GMBH v. United States, CIT #21-00080).