The Court of International Trade defined the term "partners" under the statute regarding affiliation analyses in antidumping duty cases as "a for profit cooperative endeavor in which parties share in risk and reward."

Raising many of the same arguments seen in similar cases (see 2407010059 and 2407030064), a Thai solar panel exporter said Nov. 15 that the U.S. was “misstating” findings and contradicting itself in its own analysis when it found that solar panel importers were circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on solar panels from China based on only one factor in the usual country-of-origin analysis (Trina Solar Science & Technology v. U.S., CIT # 23-00227).

Congress gave the Commerce Department wide latitude to go after "masked" dumping, the Court of International Trade said in a decision made public Nov. 15 that upheld the agency's differential pricing analysis.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judges Kimberly Moore and Richard Taranto probed claims from both exporter Oman Fasteners and the U.S. during oral argument in a suit on the Commerce Department's selection of a surrogate financial statement in an administrative review of an antidumping duty order on steel nails from Oman (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1039).

Defending its motion for judgment (see 2405300059), a paint nozzle parts importer again said Nov. 13 that its products are “fabricated heat sinks made from aluminum extrusions” and that they do have specified thermal performance requirements (Wagner Spray Tech Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00241).

Nvidia CMP 170 HX graphics processing units should be excluded from Section 301 tariffs on China, importer Atlas Power argued in a Nov. 13 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Atlas Power v. United States, CIT # 23-00084).

Exporter Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xiang) Industry Co. has no statutory or constitutional standing to challenge CBP's issuance of or refusal to modify the withhold release order on silica-based products made by its parent company Hoshine Silicon or its subsidiaries, the U.S. argued. Filing a reply brief at the Court of International Trade on Nov. 8, the government said Hoshine offered an incorrect "zone of interests" analysis to bolster its claim of statutory standing (Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xing) Industry Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00048).

The Commerce Department prorated the countervailing duty set on exporter The Ancientree Cabinet Co. in the countervailing duty investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China to account for the percentage of its U.S. customers that failed to verify nonuse of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co. v. U.S., CIT # 20-00110).

Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

The Court of International Trade failed to take anti-forced labor advocacy group International Rights Advocates' (IRAdvocates') allegations as true when ruling on whether the group had standing to challenge CBP's inaction on a petition to ban cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire, IRAdvocates argued in its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 12. The advocacy group said it suffered injury-in-fact, since CBP's "failure to enforce Section 307" deprived the group of a "major tool in its foundational purpose of ending forced child labor in cocoa harvesting" (International Rights Advocates v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2316).