Antidumping duty China-wide rates can still be based on adverse facts available (AFA) even if no members of the countrywide entity were found to be uncooperative in an administrative review, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a June 10 decision reversing a decision to the contrary from the Court of International Trade.

The Commerce Department can apply total adverse facts available for a mandatory respondent's failure to provide its factors of production data on a product-specific basis in an antidumping case, the Court of International Trade ruled in a June 9 opinion. Judge Leo Gordon, in a consolidated action challenging an antidumping administrative review on steel nails from China, said Commerce had the right to switch to the control number-specific reporting requirement and the mandatory respondent should have known about this switch. Gordon also found that Commerce was justified in including the total AFA rate for two of the three mandatory respondents in the average for the non-individually reviewed respondents' rate.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results which used partial adverse facts available to raise the antidumping rate for Indian stainless steel bar exporter Venus Wire Industries Pvt., in a June 2 opinion. After receiving remand instructions from Judge Mark Barnett on Nov. 11 to further explain its use of partial AFA, Commerce did just that, but also raised the AD rate for Venus from 5.35% to 24.60%. Venus contested the results, arguing that Commerce exceeded the scope of its own voluntary remand request and only ever meant to establish a "higher, punitive margin." Barnett rejected these claims, upholding Commerce's determination.

The Court of International Trade in a June 2 opinion remanded an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China back to the Commerce Department after a related ruling in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found the mandatory respondents to not be subject to the AD order. In the remand, Commerce is to determine a new rate for the separate rate respondents in the review now that the existing 0.79% dumping margin for the mandatory respondents no longer applies.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 2 upheld a Court of International Trade ruling that S.C. Johnson's Ziploc brand reclosable sandwich bags are classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 3923 as articles for the conveyance or packing of other goods, dutiable at 3%, and not in heading 3924 as plastic household goods, which are eligible for duty-free GSP treatment. Since the bags could fall under either heading 3923 or 3924, heading 3923 is the correct home for the bags since its terms are "more difficult to satisfy and describe the article with a greater degree of accuracy and certainty," the Federal Circuit said in upholding CIT's decision.

The Court of International Trade remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department's final results in a countervailing duty investigation on truck and bus tires from China in a May 19 opinion made public on May 26. Upholding Commerce's issuance of the CVD order and the agency's application of adverse facts available to previously unreported grants and loans by respondent Giuzhou Tyre Co., Judge Timothy Reif also sent back for further consideration Commerce's decision to apply AFA to China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, along with four other elements to its duty calculation.

The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's remand results reversing a scope ruling that included ready to assemble kitchen cabinets under the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood products from China, in a May 27 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann had originally remanded on the question of whether the scope request from petitioners in the case was specific enough to be accepted, and upon further examination Commerce found that it was not. None of the litigants challenged the remand redetermination.

A set of domestic steel producers will not be allowed to intervene in six challenges to the Commerce Department's denials of Section 232 tariff exclusions to steel importers, following a May 25 decision from the Court of International Trade. "The Court concludes that the proposed intervenors are ineligible to intervene as a matter of law and therefore denies their motions," said Judge Miller Baker in the decision. "Nevertheless, the Court reiterates its willingness to entertain motions to appear as amici curiae."

The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's second remand results which, under court order, added the full amount of duty drawback adjustment to two companies' export prices and nixed two circumstances of sale adjustments in an antidumping case on Turkish steel.

The Court of International Trade on May 18 sustained a scope revision in antidumping and countervailing duty investigation on steel trailer wheels from China, backing the Commerce Department's addition to the scope in its final determinations of language covering Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) chrome-covered wheels. In a pair of opinions, Judge Gary Katzmann said Commerce had authority to determine the scope of its investigations, and found that the agency "provided adequate explanation" for its decision to include PVD chrome wheels. However, Katzmann did remand the cases due to Commerce's retroactive imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties, instructing the agency to assess the duties from the final scope memo that made the scope changes, and not the date of the preliminary determination.