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 Commerce Department didn't properly apply the "proper statutory test for affiliation" between antidumping duty respondent Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. and one of its customers, BNK Steel Co., the Court of International Trade ruled in a Nov. 13 opinion. Judge Stephen Vaden said that Commerce, as part of the 2019-20 AD review of circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, erred in basing its finding of affiliation between the two companies on a single shared human resources manager and the mere speculation that there could have been other ties between the companies.

President Donald Trump didn't clearly misconstrue the statute when he revoked a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Nov. 13. Granting the president wider discretion to make modifications to Section 201 duties, Judges Alan Lourie, Richard Taranto and Leonard Stark said that the statute -- Section 2254(b)(1)(B) of the Trade Act of 1930 -- allows for trade-restricting modifications, as opposed to only trade-liberalizing ones.

A U.S. semiconductor company and a Canadian electronics component manufacturer are locked in a legal battle that could have implications for the export compliance responsibilities of sellers and buyers, particularly within the chip industry.

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 8 upheld a Commerce Department scope ruling that importer Valeo North America's T-series aluminum sheet is covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China. Judge Mark Barnett sustained Commerce's consideration of and weight applied to various industry evidence along with its detailed discussion of heat treatment.

The Commerce Department arbitrarily rejected arguments from Canadian softwood lumber exporter Resolute FP Canada -- despite a "good cause" showing by Resolute -- when it found the company would be likely to continue dumping, in the final results of a sunset review, Resolute said in its Nov. 6 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Resolute FP Canada v. U.S., CIT # 23-00095).

The Commerce Department erroneously used Malaysian tariff schedule subheading 4402.90.1000 as the surrogate value for coal-based carbonized materials in an antidumping review of activated carbon instead of the broader Harmonized System subheading 4402.90, exporters Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. and Carbon Activated Corp. argued. Filing their opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the exporters said Commerce's decision was based on "inaccurate and unsupported factual findings" (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2135).

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.

Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit questioned antidumping duty petitioner Wheatland Tube Co. and respondent Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. during a Nov. 7 oral argument over Wheatland's claim that a Commerce Department scope ruling improperly excluded dual-stenciled pipe from the AD order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2181).

CBP abused its discretion by ignoring explicit antidumping and countervailing duty scope language when it found that importer and AD/CVD petitioner Pitts Enterprises evaded the AD/CVD orders on chassis and subassemblies thereof from China, Pitts argued in a Nov. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer admitted to integrating Chinese axle and landing gear leg components into finished chassis shipments, which were finished in Vietnam, but it said individual Chinese components were "explicitly removed from the scope" (Pitts Enterprises v. U.S., CIT # 23-00234).