CAFC Dismisses AD Case Challenging Use of Questionnaire Instead of On-Site Verification
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 27 order dismissed an appeal led by Ellwood City Forge on the Commerce Department's decision to issue a questionnaire in lieu of on-site verification in an antidumping duty investigation. The appellants moved to voluntarily dismiss the action before filing their opening brief at the appellate court. Counsel for Ellwood did not reply to request for comment on the reason for dismissing the case (Ellwood City Forge v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1382).
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The case concerns the antidumping duty investigation on forged steel fluid end blocks from Italy. During the investigation, Commerce said it was unable to conduct on-site verification due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, instead issuing a questionnaire. Ellwood City challenged the lack of verification at CIT, alongside another similar challenge it filed in a different antidumping proceeding (see 2201200032). The court ultimately found that since Ellwood City failed to raise this question during the investigation, the matter should be tossed (see 2206140044).
The plaintiffs unsuccessfully vied for a rehearing over the opinion, arguing that Commerce's remand results in a separate AD case showed it would be futile to raise the point administratively. Again, the trade court tossed the case, finding that the rehearing bid was little more than an illegal attempt to relitigate an argument already dismissed (see 2211080059). The judge said that Ellwood misunderstood "the nexus between futility" and the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies.