The Commerce Department illegally picked Germany as the third-country comparison market in the antidumping duty investigation on preserved mushrooms from the Netherlands, U.S. mushroom producer Giorgio Foods argued in a July 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Giorgio, the AD petitioner, said that none of the reasons Commerce gave for picking Germany was supported by substantial evidence, leading, in part, to a de minimis rate for respondent Prochamp and the company's exclusion from the AD order (Giorgio Foods v. U.S., CIT # 23-00133).
The Court of International Trade in a July 24 opinion granted the Commerce Department's voluntary remand request to address alleged errors in calculating the antidumping margin as part of the investigation on forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany. Judge Stephen Vaden also sent the case back after finding that Commerce did not express a clear rationale for its refusal to address petitioner Ellwood City Forge Co.'s claims on alternate legal grounds Commerce could have used to make a particular market situation adjustment.
The Court of International Trade on July 21 upheld surrogate value picks for five inputs in an antidumping duty administrative review on activated carbon from China. The five inputs are carbonized material, coal tar, hydrochloric acid, steam and bituminous coal.
Importer PrimeSource Building Products moved for a partial stay of the Court of International Trade's order dismissing its suit challenging President Donald Trump's expansion of Section 232 steel and aluminum duties onto "derivative" products. PrimeSource said it wants the order stayed pending the resolution of its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (Primesource Building Products v. U.S., CIT # 20-00032).
The Federal Reserve Board on July 19 fined Deutsche Bank, its New York branch and other U.S. affiliates $186 million for violating two consent orders with the bank dealing with sanctions compliance and anti-money laundering controls. The board said Deutsche Bank "made insufficient remedial progress" under the two orders and had insufficient "anti-money laundering internal controls and governance processes" stemming from its past relationship with the bank's Estonian branch.
The Commerce Department failed to explain its "abrupt change in practice" from its past decision finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable, Dongbu argued in a July 21 opening brief at the Court of International Trade. The exporter relied on the trade court's recent opinion finding in a separate case also brought by Dongbu in which the court agreed and said that the change in practice was "arbitrary and unlawful" (see 2307100028). "The facts are the same in this appeal" on the 2020 review of the CVD order on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea, and the court "should reach the same conclusion here" (KG Dongbu Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00055).
The Commerce Department illegally relied on unverified data from respondent Saffron Living Co. in an antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Thailand, the Court of International Trade ruled in a July 20 opinion. While the government claimed that because Commerce was unable to verify Saffron's information, it could use the exporter's information as facts otherwise available, Judge M. Miller Baker said this reading would "eviscerate the separate requirement" that Commerce verify all information relied on in making a final determination.
Paul Goldfinch, a sanctioned former board member at Russian financial institution Bank Otkritie, filed suit on July 17 at the District Court for the District of Columbia over the government's failure to render a decision on his delisting petition. The banker, listing the State and Treasury Departments as defendants, said he resigned after Bank Otkritie was listed in February 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the government has stalled on finding that he has satisfied its delisting requirements (Paul Goldfinch v. Antony J. Blinken, D.D.C. # 23-02045).
The Court of International Trade in a July 19 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to assign exporter Double Coin Holdings the 105.31% China-wide antidumping duty rate in an administrative review of the AD order on off-the-road tires from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the decision complies with the court's previous decision finding that Double Coin did not rebut the presumption of Chinese state control over its export activities. No parties commented on the remand results.
The Court of International Trade in a July 20 opinion refused to invalidate its past order instructing CBP to reliquidate Target Corp.'s metal-top ironing tables, saying that doing so would "turn the clock back over 40 years" prior to the Customs Courts Act's passage and "again call into question whether a party before the Court could obtain full and complete relief." Reversing the order as Target requests would "elevate the principle of finality" of liquidation "over the inherent power" of the trade court under Article III of the Constitution, Judge Leo Gordon said.