Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit questioned counsel for both antidumping respondent Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi and the government on the Commerce Department's decision to use Turkish lira to value Habas' home-market sales in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on cold-rolled steel flat products from Turkey. Judges Kimberly Moore, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham questioned Habas' claim that U.S. dollars should have been used because its home market price negotiations, invoices and records all used U.S. dollars (Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1158).
The Commerce Department reasonably picked the financial statements of San Shing Fastech Corp. to calculate the constructed value profit and indirect selling expenses of respondent Your Standing International in a review of the antidumping duty order on nails from Taiwan, the Court of International Trade held in a Feb. 7 decision. Judge Claire Kelly said the agency appropriately found that San Shing makes "comparable merchandise," has contemporaneous financial statements and sells over 70% of its products to markets outside the U.S.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The U.S. and importer Mirror Metals filed a stipulated judgment on agreed facts in which the government agreed not to apply 25% Section 232 tariffs to the importer’s steel articles (Mirror Metals v. United States, CIT #21-00144).
Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, an importer of enriched isotope compounds, supported Jan. 23 its October motion for judgment (see 2410250044) over the government’s opposition (see 2412260034). It again said its products aren’t covered by the relevant antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders -- or, alternatively, if the orders are ambiguous, the Commerce Department must conduct an analysis of k(1) factors (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories v. United States, CIT # 23-00080).
Responding to a request by the court, multiple parties filed four different briefs addressing the impact of Loper Bright on litigation regarding the use of a differential pricing analysis in a Canadian lumber review (Government of Canada v. United States, CIT Consol. # 23-00187).
Two former senior advisers from the Commerce Department, Sahar Hafeez and Julian Beach, have joined Pillsbury Winthrop in the regulatory business unit and international trade practice, the firm announced. Hafeez rejoins the firm as senior counsel after serving in various roles at Commerce and the White House, most recently as senior adviser to the assistant secretary for industry and analysis at Commerce. Beach joins the firm as special counsel, most recently working as senior adviser and chief-of-staff for enforcement and compliance at Commerce.
Countervailing duty petitioner Nucor Corp. will appeal a Court of International Trade case on whether the Commerce Department can countervail three debt-to-equity infusions made to exporter KG Dongbu Steel Co. in the 2019 CVD review on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea. In the case, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce couldn't countervail the D/E swaps after previously refusing to do so in the prior CVD reviews, without finding a mistake of fact or analysis (see 2407030073). The judge then upheld the agency's decision not to countervail the restructurings on remand, finding that the evidence didn't support finding that the South Korean government pressured non-governmental institutions to take part in debt restructuring (see 2501170044) (KG Dongbu Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00047).
In its opposition to a reconsideration request in a vehicle sidebar classification case, the U.S. “misleads” the court by claiming that exporter Keystone Automotives was attempting to relitigate its position. Actually, the exporter said, its request is “based on the standard of review of the tariff exclusion” Keystone had relied on in its initial arguments (Keystone Automotive Operations v. U.S., CIT # 21-00215).