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).
The Commerce Department properly relied on a questionnaire instead of conducting on-site verification due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions, the U.S. argued in a May 10 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The plaintiffs, led by Ellwood City Forge, didn't take issue with the verification methodology until litigation and the methodology is in line with Commerce's actions in prior crises, so the questionnaire should be sustained, Commerce argued (Ellwood City Forge Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00007).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a confidential May 10 opinion sustained parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's remand in a case brought by Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems on the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from South Korea. In a letter on the opinion, Judge Mark Barnett gave the litigants until May 17 to review the opinion to look over business confidential information (Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems v. U.S., CIT #20-00108).
The Commerce Department illegally used one antidumping mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit, mandatory respondent Hyundai Steel Co. and non-selected respondent AJU Besteel Co. argued in a pair of complaints at the Court of International Trade (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00138) (AJU Besteel Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00139).
The Commerce Department properly found that the Chinese government and countervailing duty respondent Jangho Group failed to respond to the best of their ability on whether aluminum extrusions producers are "authorities," the Court of International Trade ruled in a May 10 opinion. As a result, Commerce properly applied adverse facts available, Judge Leo Gordon ruled. Issuing his second opinion in the case after Jangho vied for a rehearing over its unaddressed "alternative arguments," Gordon also said that Commerce properly found that the provision of glass and aluminum extrusions below cost are specific subsidies.
The lawyer for a group of three U.S. chloropicrin producers' medical issues were not unexpected and thus do not classify as an "extraordinary circumstance," warranting an untimely filing in an antidumping duty sunset review that led to the revocation of the order, the U.S. argued in a May 9 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The lawyer had been experiencing the medical issues for months and had actually carried out other tasks in the sunset review on the day prior to and on the day the submission was due, showing that the Commerce Department's rejection of the filing in question was justified, DOJ argued (Trinity Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1329).