The Commerce Department properly applied adverse facts available when weighing antidumping respondent Bosun Tool's country of origin information using a first-in, first-out (FIFO) methodology, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 27 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly found that although Bosun cooperated to the best of its ability with the AD review, the use of AFA was warranted because an exporter is reasonably expected to keep documents that properly document country of origin -- something that the FIFO methodology does not do.

The Commerce Department's simple average of the de minimis and the adverse facts available China-wide rates to derive the all-others rate in an antidumping case did not reasonably reflect the potential dumping margin of the separate rate respondents, PrimeSource Building Products argued in an Oct. 18 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The AFA negates the presumption that mandatory respondents' rates reflect the separate rate respondents, and prior reviews show that cooperating separate respondents' rates are lower than firms subject to AFA, the brief argued (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).

Multinational conglomerate Honeywell Inc. expects to pay upwards of $160 million to settle investigations by the Department of Justice and Brazilian law enforcement over alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company said in its quarterly report filed on Oct. 22 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said it continues to cooperate with DOJ and the SEC throughout the investigations, including regarding a potential resolution of the allegations. Honeywell said that it recorded a $160 million charge in its Consolidated Statement of Operations, also accruing a liability on its Consolidated Balance Sheet to account for the expected payout.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has the jurisdiction to hear a case involving Turkey's state-owned bank Halkbank's sanctions-evasion charges, the appellate court said in an Oct. 22 opinion. Rejecting a motion to dismiss the case from Halkbank, a three-judge panel at the court said that the district court properly found that it had jurisdiction over federal criminal prosecution of Halkbank, skirting immunity conferred under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. However, the 2nd Circuit stopped short of answering whether the FSIA universally confers immunity on foreign sovereigns in a criminal context. Even if the act gave Halkbank immunity, the panel said that Halkbank qualified for commercial activity exceptions to immunity because its sanctions evasion scheme happened in the U.S.

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Anonymous solar producers still have yet to justify their requests for anti-circumvention inquiries on solar cells from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, so the Commerce Department should decline to initiate the inquiries altogether, said NextEra and Florida Power & Light in their Oct. 25 response to additional information submitted by the producers nearly two weeks prior.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 22 backed the Commerce Department's decision to pick Malaysia as the primary surrogate country in an antidumping duty review, despite using a Romanian company's financial statements to determine the surrogate financial ratios is backed by substantial evidence. Sustaining Commerce's remand results in the AD review, Chief Judge Mark Barnett also upheld the agency's surrogate value selection for bituminous coal, an input of the subject merchandise of the review, activated carbon, and Commerce's financial ratio calculations.

CBP on Oct. 18 asked the Alaska U.S. District Court to reconsider a temporary restraining order it issued on Jones Act penalties levied against Alaskan shipping companies, arguing that the TRO is "overbroad." Seeking to preserve its right to issue Jones Act penalties on shipments for which the five-year statute of limitations may run out, CBP wants to change the injunction from applying to any penalty notices relating to the Jones Act violation in question to just applying to penalty notices issued on or after Sept. 30 (Kloosterboer International Forwarding LLC, et al. v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198).

Korean steel company Hyundai Steel's port usage rights and sewerage fee reductions are not countervailable benefits, with both stemming from unique arrangements that were not government subsidies specific to Hyundai, the company said in an Oct. 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, CIT #21-00536).

The Court of International Trade should reconsider its dismissals of multiple classification lawsuits over LED lamps because the events that resulted in the dismissals constituted "excusable neglect," counsel for Target and other LED importers argued in an Oct. 15 motion. In 10 cases making the classification challenge, the plaintiffs' counsel, John Peterson of Neville Peterson, argued that the plaintiffs' failure to extend the case's stay on the Customs Case Management Calendar "reasonably resulted from events both practical and circumstantial" (Target General Merchandise, Inc. v. United States, CIT #14-00283).