CIT Dismisses Challenge of Extension Procedure for Withdrawals of Requests for Admin Review

The Court of International Trade dismissed an action by Wuxi Seamless Oil Pipe to force the International Trade Administration to rescind the 2011 countervailing duty administrative review of oil country tubular goods from China (C-570-) for the company. Wuxi originally requested the review of itself, but later withdrew its request. The withdrawal of the request, however, came after the deadline for withdrawals, and the ITA rejected Wuxi’s request to extend the deadline. According to Wuxi, the ITA is illegally applying a new standard for extensions to the withdrawal period without requesting comments to the regulatory change: While the 19 CFR 351.213(d) provides for extensions when “reasonable to do so,” the ITA in the administrative review at issue said Wuxi needed to show “extraordinary circumstances.” Rather than confront that issue, however, the court said Wuxi’s challenge was premature. CIT found the residual Section 1581(i) jurisdiction under which Wuxi filed the challenge doesn’t apply, because the company didn’t show a challenge on 1581(c) grounds following completion of the review to be inadequate, and dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.