The Commerce Department continues to conflate "disproportionality" with "disparity" in its de facto specificity finding regarding a Korean electricity subsidy, the South Korean government told the Court of International Trade earlier this month. The trade court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have routinely found that these two concepts are distinct, yet Commerce ignores the courts' instruction when finding that the Korean steel industry, when paired with two unrelated industries, consumes a disproportionate amount of an electricity subsidy, the brief said (Hyundai Steel v. United States, CIT Consol. # 24-00190).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department reasonably found on remand in a case on a new shipper review that exporter Co May Import-Export Company didn't have a bona fide sale of subject merchandise during the review period, petitioner Catfish Farmers of America argued. Filing comments in support of Commerce's remand decision at the Court of International Trade, the petitioner said the remand determination "fully and appropriately responds to the Court’s opinion" and is otherwise legal and supported by the record (Catfish Farmers of America v. United States, CIT # 24-00126).
Importer Amoena USA filed a pair of supplemental briefs at the Court of International Trade in its customs case on the classification of its mastectomy brassieres (Amoena USA v. United States, CIT # 20-00100).
The Commerce Department erred by including manufacturer Tecnicas de Fluidos' products within the scope of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe from Mexico and by collapsing respondent Maquilacero and Tecnicas, its affiliate, in the 2022-23 administrative review of the order, Maquilacero and Tecnicas argued in a motion for judgment (Maquilacero v. United States, CIT # 25-00176).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Exporters challenged several aspects of the Commerce Department’s investigation of ferrosilicon from Malaysia in a Dec. 17 motion for judgment (Om Materials (Sarawak) v. United States, CIT # 25-00130).
Importer Cyber Power Systems erred in analyzing whether its cables fit under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8544.42.90, which provides for cables "of a kind used for telecommunications," by only looking to the "device and industry in which" its cables are used, the U.S. argued (Cyber Power Systems (USA) v. United States, CIT # 21-00200).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Dec. 23 issued its mandate in an antidumping duty case after the court granted the government's motion for a voluntary remand to reconsider its differential pricing analysis, which is used to identify "masked" dumping. The U.S. asked for the remand after CAFC's rulings in Stupp v. U.S. and Marmen v. U.S., in which the court largely invalidated the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test in its differential pricing analysis. While the court held oral argument on whether a voluntary remand was needed, due to opposition from exporter PT Enterprise, the court ultimately found remand to be proper given that Commerce has "materially changed the policy directly at issue in the case" (see 2512030015). In response to Stupp and Marmen, Commerce has adopted a new "price differences test" to detect masked dumping (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1556).
The Commerce Department stuck with its finding that exporter Hyundai Steel received a disproportionate share of an electricity subsidy in South Korea in the 2021 review of the countervailing duty order on cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea. Submitting remand results on Dec. 23 at the Court of International Trade, Commerce said it changed its analysis of Hyundai's proposed disproportionate use of the subsidy after rebuke from the trade court, but came to the same conclusion (Hyundai Steel v. United States, CIT # 23-00211).