Court of International Trade

The Court of International Trade remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the fifth administrative review of the countervailing duty order on crystaline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, in a Sept. 3 order. Judge Jane Restani sustained Commerce's specificity finding for the aluminum extrusions for less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) program, the agency's chosen benchmark for the land value for the LTAR program, and plaintiff and mandatory respondent Canadian Solar's lack of creditworthiness in 2016. Conversely, the judge remanded Commerce's entered value adjustment finding for Canadian Solar and its determination that the respondents benefited from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.

The Commerce Department violated the law in its refusal to accept antidumping respondent OCTAL's new factual information attempting to refute the assumption of affiliation between it and one of its U.S. customers, OCTAL argued in a Sept. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Following a voluntary remand proceeding meant to give OCTAL a shot at commenting on the affiliation determination, OCTAL blasted the agency for not including its new facts in the case attempting to prove that it is not affiliated with the U.S. customer with which it has an exclusive supply agreement (OCTAL Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).

The Commerce Department was wrong to not remove a Section 232 steel tariff adjustment in an antidumping duty calculation in light of the Court of International Trade's opinion finding the tariff hike on Turkish steel was illegal, Turkish steel importer Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret said in a Sept. 2 brief. Following CIT's decision in Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, Commerce should not have deducted the cost of the duties from Borusan's U.S. price in an antidumping case, the exporter argued. Borusan also again argued that Section 232 duties should not be deducted from the U.S. price since, like Section 201 duties, they are remedial, temporary and would be double-counted if deducted (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00132).

The Commerce Department switched its original determination and relied on the actual costs of prime and non-prime products as reported by an antidumping respondent in Sept. 2 remand results filed at the Court of International Trade. Following the second remand in the case, Commerce made the change after the court sustained the other seven issues under contention in the first remand (Husteel Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00112).

The record doesn't support the claim that the Commerce Department erred by applying constructed value instead of plaintiff Z.A. Sea Foods Private Limited's third-country sales data to Vietnam when calculating normal value in an antidumping review, the Justice Department said in a Sept. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to ZASF's motion for judgment, DOJ said that instead, record evidence actually shows that Commerce reasonably found that ZASF's sales to its Vietnamese customers were not representative, given evidence showing that the customers were processors and exporters of shrimp to the U.S. market (Z.A. Sea Foods Private Limited et al v. United States, CIT #21-00031).

Aluminum extrusion producer Kingtom Aluminio's move for partial access under a protective order in an Aug. 27 filing to file additional affidavits and a brief in support of its motion to intervene in an antidumping duty evasion case met with light resistance from the U.S. and defendant-intervenor. Needing the go-ahead from the Court of International Trade, Kingtom also filed for an extension of time to submit its response (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC, et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. 21-00198).

CBP was incorrect to not extend a Section 301 tariff exclusion on side protective attachments for cars onto Keystone Automotive Operations' entries, the importer said in its Sept. 2 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Claiming that the auto parts fit under the terms of the exclusion, Keystone is challenging CBP's deemed denial of its protest (Keystone Automotive Operations, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00215).

Tapered roller bearing importer Wanxiang America Corporation does not have jurisdiction to challenge guidance issued from the Commerce Department to CBP on the assessment of antidumping duties, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Sept. 2 decision upholding a ruling from the Court of International Trade. Jurisdiction under the court's residual jurisdiction, Section 1581(i), cannot be claimed by "creative pleading," and proper jurisdiction for Wanxiang America's case could have been claimed elsewhere based on the "true nature of the action," the court said. The Federal Circuit pointed to a CIT's denied protest jurisdiction under Section 1581(a), and antidumping and countervailing duty challenge jurisdiction under Section 1581(c), as potential jurisdictional homes for the action.

The Court of International Trade remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department's final results in the fifth administrative review on the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China in a Sept. 3 order. The court sustained Commerce's findings that the specificity finding for the aluminum extrusions for less than adequate remuneration program, the agency's chosen benchmark for the land for LTAR program and plaintiff Canadian Solar's lack of creditworthiness in 2016. Judge Jane Restani remanded Commerce's entered value adjustment, or lack thereof, for Canadian Solar's imports under review and determination that the mandatory respondents benefited from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.

Chinese wood cabinet and vanities exporter Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co. moved, unopposed, for a preliminary injunction against liquidation of its entries in a countervailing duty challenge at the Court of International Trade, in a Sept. 1 filing. That's despite the fact that the challenge is of the underlying countervailing duty investigation on the wood cabinet and vanities from China, and liquidation of the entries is suspended until the conclusion of the first administrative review (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #20-00110).