Jacob Kopnick

The U.S. and importer Cozy Comfort traded briefs at the Court of International Trade seeking to discredit the other side's evidence ahead of a bench trial on the classification of the importer's wearable blanket, called The Comfy (Cozy Comfort Company v. United States, CIT # 22-00173).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The International Trade Commission on Sept. 23 opposed exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari's (Erdemir's) motion to consolidate three of its appeals at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit involving the sunset review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Turkey (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. International Trade Commission, Fed. Cir. # 24-2242).

The European Commission will begin registering all imports of goods under antidumping or countervailing duty investigations, allowing for retroactive collection of AD/CVD if certain conditions are met, it announced Sept. 24. Prior to the move, imports were typically registered only after a "justified" request from the EU industry.

Importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, filed separate notices of dismissal in two cases at the Court of International Trade. In both cases, the importer said CBP refused to explain why it denied a protest on its vehicle parts after the agency assessed antidumping duties 78.55% higher than it had been assigned in a past AD review (see 2407240019 and 2408090021). The cases both said CBP failed to provide adequate reasoning for denying the protests. In one, the company said the protest denial improperly centered on a message from the Commerce Department, which it wasn't given access to. Counsel for the importer didn't immediately respond to request for comment (Acquisition 362, LLC dba Strategic Import Supply, LLC v. U.S., CIT #s 24-00124, -00149).

The Commerce Department on Sept. 23 said that it can permissibly use "inter-quarter comparisons" in the Cohen's d test while detecting "masked" dumping while using "same-quarter comparisons" in its margin calculations. The agency said that "fluctuating production costs," which call for same-quarter comparisons in calculating antidumping duty margins, "do not introduce distortions into the comparison of U.S. prices with other U.S. prices in the Cohen's d test" (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 23-00113).

Indonesia launched a safeguard investigation on Sept. 18 covering tarpaulins made from plastics and synthetic fibers, the World Trade Organization announced. The Indonesian Safeguards Committee told WTO about the investigation on Sept. 23, and said interested parties should submit written comments to the safeguards committee within 15 days from the start of the proceeding.

The U.S. on Sept. 23 told the Court of International Trade an exporter "confuses statutory schemes" when it claims that past negative antidumping and countervailing duty determinations shield against anti-circumvention findings on the same goods from the same countries. Defending the Commerce Department's circumvention findings of the AD/CVD orders on circular welded carbon quality steel pipes and tubes from China, India and South Korea, the government said exporter SeAH Steel Vina Corp. conflated the criteria for AD/CVD investigations with those for circumvention inquiries (SeAH Steel Vina Corp. v. United States, CIT Consol # 23-00256).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The U.S. on Sept. 20 defended its decision on remand to not apply partial adverse facts available against exporter Garg Tube, claiming that the exporter was "fully cooperative," having made multiple attempts to get cost information from an unaffiliated supplier. The government said Commerce couldn't find enough evidence to show that the potential leverage Garg Tube could exert over the supplier supports the use of AFA (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).