In dueling submissions to the Court of International Trade following oral arguments on April 19, DOJ and Ancientree made their final cases for the best surrogate country pick in the antidumping investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. In a feud over whether Commerce should have picked Malaysia or Romania, the main contention was detailed financial statements versus more comparable producers in quantity and quality of product.
Court of International Trade activity
The Court of International Trade's newest judge, Stephen Vaden, issued his first opinion with the court on April 21, dismissing tire importer Strategic Import Supply's challenge of CBP's assessment of countervailing duties on its imports of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China.
The Commerce Department continued on course in a remand redetermination on cold-rolled steel from South Korea submitted to the Court of International Trade April 19. The agency offered further explanation in response to a December 2020 Federal Circuit decision that struck down aspects of its final determination in the original CV duty investigation on cold-rolled steel, but did not make any changes to its findings to address concerns over a finding that electricity offered at less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) was not a countervailable subsidy. The Federal Circuit had remanded because Commerce had purportedly relied on its old “preferentiality” standard, and failed to address a second South Korean electricity producer.
The Department of Justice continued to raise jurisdictional issues in support for a motion to dismiss a challenge from steel exporter Voestalpine USA and importer Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel seeking a refund of Section 232 duties paid on steel entries in the Court of International Trade. In an April 19 filing, the DOJ challenged the jurisdiction of Voestalpine and Bilstein's challenge while pointing out that the plaintiffs are not entitled to a refund on the duties paid since they forgot to complete one key step in the tariff exclusion process -- alerting CBP that the Commerce Department issued an exclusion in the first place.