In oral arguments March 7, Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif heard the government’s and exporters’ arguments in a case regarding an administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. The review’s final results were based on the calculated rate of only one respondent after it was discovered selection of the other was based on an error by the Commerce Department (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. U.S., CIT # 20-03885).
An exporter says a government brief failed to address its argument that the Commerce Department had found in a review that the exporter experienced large enough swings in production costs to call for a quarterly analysis, then went on to determine it had used differential pricing with the Cohen's d test anyway (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 23-00113).
The Court of International Trade in an opinion made public March 8 sent back the Commerce Department's model matching methodology in the antidumping duty investigation on superabsorbent polymers (SAP) from South Korea. Judge Thomas Aquilino said that the agency didn't justify the methodology with sufficient evidence and that it used unverified data from exporter LG Chem while also failing to address evidence from the AD petitioner that the methodology allowed for LG Chem to manipulate its AD margin.
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during a March 7 oral argument prodded various statutory interpretations of U.S. countervailing duty law as it pertains to finding whether demand for a good is "substantially dependent" on an upstream product for purposes of assigning countervailing duties. If substantial dependence is established, Commerce may attribute subsidies to a raw agricultural grower to a later stage producer.
Another ball bearings exporter threw its complaint into the ring March 5 to contest a recent antidumping duty administrative review. It alleged that the Commerce Department unnecessarily applied partial adverse facts available and needlessly conducted a pricing differential analysis for the mandatory respondent (Zhejiang Jingli Bearing Technology Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00038).
World Trade Organization members at the body's 13th Ministerial Conference decided to extend the moratorium on e-commerce duties until MC14 or March 31, 2026, whichever comes first, the WTO announced at the conclusion of the ministerial. They also agreed to conduct "period reviews on the E-commerce Work Programme" with the goal of "presenting recommendations for action to the Ministerial Conference."
The International Trade Commission shouldn't have sought information about the circulation of phosphate fertilizer already in the market nor expected that circulation to prevent oversupply, two importers said in two March 1 briefs for the Court of International Trade (OCP S.A. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00219).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Feb. 29 reply brief that exporter Guizhou Tyre offered a "confused rendition of" the Commerce Department's separate rate analysis, equating the presumption of foreign state control with the lower standard from the agency's "substantial evidence requirement." The government said that, contrary to Guizhou Tyre's claims, it's not Commerce's duty to affirmatively show an absence of Chinese state control (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2165).
Antidumping duty petitioners Bio-Lab, Innovative Water Care and Occidental Chemical Corp. took to the Court of International Trade on March 1 to contest the Commerce Department's surrogate country pick in the 2021-22 antidumping duty review on chlorinated isocyanurates from China (Bio-Lab v. United States, CIT # 24-00024).
Just as the Court of International Trade ruled, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can hear a Chinese diamond sawblade exporter’s case on a new issue arising from a separate rate determination even though CAFC has already decided a previous case regarding that same determination, an importer said Feb. 28 (China Manufacturers Alliance, LLC v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).