The Court of International Trade should reconsider its decision upholding the Commerce Department's differential pricing analysis in an antidumping duty review given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision calling the use of a statistical test underpinning the analysis into question, plaintiff SeAH Steel Corp. argued in a Sept. 26 motion. SeAH said the opinion also should be revisited over its move to uphold Commerce's inclusion of SeAH's inventory valuation losses as general and administrative (G&A) expenses (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT Consol. #19-00086).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on Sept. 23 in a case brought by Vicentin on the antidumping duty investigation on biodiesel from Argentina. In the opinion, the Federal Circuit held that tradeable tax credits fall within the regulatory definition of a "price adjustment," meaning the Commerce Department properly deducted the credits from respondent LDC Argentina's export price (see 2208020052). The court said that the agency's use of an international market price for soybeans in its constructed value calculation for biodiesel does not count as a double remedy, even though the U.S. imposed countervailing duties on Argentine soybeans (Vicentin v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1988).
The Commerce Department must provide further explanation for, and if needed, reconsider its finding as to whether the "likely selling price" of non-prime plate set in antidumping respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's books is the best available information for evaluating the cost of production, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 23 opinion. Given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's opinion in a "parallel matter" instructing Commerce to find the actual cost of production for prime and non-prime cut-to-length plate, Judge Leo Gordon sent back Commerce's reliance on Dillinger's "likely selling price" of non-prime plate.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 23 opinion held that the Commerce Department properly used total adverse facts available over antidumping respondent Shanxi Pioneer Hardware Industrial's failure to report all its factors of production data on a control number-specific basis. Judges Kimberly Moore, Pauline Newman and Kara Stoll ruled that the CONNUM-specific reporting requirement is an interpretive rule and not a legislative one requiring a notice-and-comment period, and that Pioneer failed to cooperate to the best of its ability by not maintaining adequate records and not developing a proper reporting methodology.
Challenges to several Commerce Department actions around the antidumping duty investigation on tomatoes from Mexico, and subsequent suspension agreements, have already been ruled on at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and should be denied, the government argued in a Sept. 20 motion to dismiss aspects of several complaints from Bioparques, a Mexican agriculture company. The Florida Tomato Exchange, a defendant-intervenor, made a supplementary motion to dismiss on Sept. 21 (Bioparques et al v. U.S., CIT # 19-00204).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate Sept. 19 in a case involving an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from South Korea. The court ruled that minor issues in reporting home market sales don't rise to the level that justifies the use of an adverse facts available margin, nor does the respondent's purported lack of cooperation in a previous year's review (see 2208110069) (Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2312).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate Sept. 19 in a case on the 10th administrative review of the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture. In the opinion, the appellate court ruled that CBP timely liquidated or reliquidated 10 entries of the furniture, finding that the first unambiguous indication that an injunction against liquidation had ended came from liquidation instructions from the Commerce Department that were sent within the six months prior to liquidation (see 2207280028). The Federal Circuit said a Court of International Trade opinion in a separate case that put in place the injunction on the 11 entries under dispute did not unambiguously end the injunction (Aspects Furniture International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2060, -2061).
The Commerce Department properly found that the South Korean government did not provide a countervailable subsidy via the provision of electricity below cost, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 12 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the case's second visit to the appellate court. Replying to countervailing duty petitioner and plaintiff-appellant Nucor Corp., the government said that it carried out a lawful "Tier 3" less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) analysis, looking at whether the Korean government sets its tariffs pursuant to market principles, and that it did not violate the Federal Circuit's prior ruling in the case since it did not undertake a preferentiality analysis. Nucor ignored the "lion's share of Commerce's actual determination," when arguing that the agency did carry out a preferentiality analysis, the brief said (POSCO v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1525).
The Court of International Trade was wrong to dismiss the government's case against importer Katana Racing seeking to collect over $5.7 million in unpaid duties due to an expired statute of limitations, the U.S. argued in its Sept. 13 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The government's suit was in fact timely filed since Katana could not revoke its waiver of the statute of limitations, the brief said. The U.S. said no law backs the finding that such a waiver could be revoked and stop the government from filing suit for unpaid duties, and that the trade court's ruling "leads to absurd results" (U.S. v. Katana Racing, Fed. Cir. #22-1832).
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