The Court of International Trade in a July 24 opinion remanded the antidumping duty investigation on forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany. Judge Stephen Vaden sent the case back to the Commerce Department so the agency could address alleged errors in the antidumping rate calculation and because the agency did not express a clear rationale for its refusal to address petitioner Ellwood City Forge Co.'s claims on alternate legal grounds to make a particular market situation adjustment.
The government correctly classified counterweights for mini-excavators as "backhoe" parts under tariff subheading 8431.49.9044, meaning that they were not eligible for Section 301 tariff exclusion, ruled the Court of International Trade in a July 21 opinion. Judge Jane Restani sided with the government's dictionary definitions of "backhoe" and "excavator," rather than Norca's industry usage. Even if Norca’s argument about the commercial understanding is correct, "Norca cannot overcome legislative intent," said the court. The CIT cannot accept a commercial meaning that is at odds with the tariff schedule itself, Restani said in her ruling.
The Court of International Trade in a July 20 opinion granted the government's motion to toss Target's case seeking to invalidate a CIT order instructing CBP reliquidate Target's metal-top iron tables at the 72.29% dumping rate instead of the original 9.47% rate. Judge Leo Gordon said that were Target to succeed, the result would "turn the clock back over 40 years" prior to the Customs Court Act's passage and "again call into question whether a party before the Court could obtain full and complete relief." Reversing the order as Target requests would "elevate the principle of finality" of liquidation "over the inherent power" of the trade court under Article III of the Constitution, the judge said.
The Court of International Trade in a July 19 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to raise the dumping margins in the 2018-19 review of the antidumping duties on heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Mexico for mandatory respondents Maquilacero and Prolamsa from 0% to 3.48% and 2.11%, respectively. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce properly corrected ministerial errors alleged by petitioner Nucor Corp. in Maquilacero's rate by "removing the inadvertent zeros within the calculation programming" and dropping data from the time before the review period. The judge also sustained the agency's decision to fix its currency conversion mistakes made in calculating Prolamsa's rate.
The Court of International Trade in a July 20 opinion remanded the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Thailand. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that Commerce's reliance on unverified data from respondent Saffron Living Co. was illegal. While the government claimed that because Commerce was unable to verify Saffron's information it could use the exporter's information as facts otherwise available, Baker said this reading would "eviscerate the separate requirement" that Commerce verify all information relied on in making a final determination. The judge also sent back Commerce's refusal to apply either transactions disregarded or major input rules in light of evidence of Saffron's substantial affiliated-party transactions, dubbing the government's defense "anemic."
The Court of International Trade sent back parts of the Commerce Department's 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. Judge M. Miller Baker said that while Commerce understands the concepts of sameness and comparability to "represent different concepts" when picking surrogate nations, the agency "misapplied the statutory standard" by excluding candidate surrogates that had a comparable level of economic development. The judge also upheld Commerce's decision not to grant exporter Dotaseafood a higher rate beyond the countrywide margin for failing to cooperate to the best of its ability given that the company did not rebut the presumption of state control. Lastly, Baker said exporter Nam Viet was legally granted a separate rate after the judge refused to reweigh evidence regarding the company's reporting of its affiliates.
The Court of International Trade in a July 14 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2017-18 review of the antidumping duty order on welded line pipe from South Korea. Judge Claire Kelly said that Commerce adequately explained its decision to reject exporter Nexteel's accounting method and classify the company's losses related to the suspension of its production lines as general and administrative expenses instead of costs of goods sold. The judge also said Commerce answered the court's previous questions on which of Nexteel's production lines were suspended during which parts of the review period and on whether the agency differentiates among suspension periods based on when they occur in the review period.
The Court of International Trade in a pair of July 13 opinions dismissed two lawsuits, one from importer PrimeSource Building Products and the other from Oman Fasteners and Huttig Building Products, challenging President Donald Trump's move to expand the Section 232 national security tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivatives." The order comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate after finding that the expansion, made beyond procedural time limits, was legal. Relying on its prior decision in Transpacific Steel v. U.S., the court said that a tariff move made outside these limits is permissible so long as it fits under the duties' original plan of action.
The Court of International Trade on July 12 upheld the Commerce Department's decision on voluntary remand to slash the antidumping duty rate for the separate rate respondents in the 2016-17 review on diamond sawblades from China from 82.05% to 41.03%. The case had been stayed pending the resolution of Bosun Tools v. U.S., in which Commerce originally used the 82.05% adverse facts available rate in an earlier review given that the mandatory respondents were uncooperative. The agency slashed the rate in that case as well, leading to an identical move in the present case led by exporter Danyang Weiwang Tools Manufacturing Co.
The Court of International Trade in a July 11 opinion remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. Judge Jane Restani upheld Commerce's tier-three benchmark calculation for natural gas, which included the import-specific 20% value-added tax and 5% import duty, along with the agency's decision to countervail phosphate rock mining licenses issued by the Russian government to exporters EuroChem and PhosAgro. Restani sent back Commerce's decision to use a "Profit Before Tax" figure to account for exported phosphate rock prices when calculating PhosAGro's profit ratio. The judge also remanded Commerce's reliance on PhosAgro's cost information and its explanation for why it found EuroChem's cost information supported.