Russian exporter Industrial Group Phosphorite told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the Commerce Department contradicted the countervailing duty statute in finding that the Russian government's provision of natural gas was de facto specific. Filing a reply brief on Aug. 7, the exporter said Commerce can't find that the agrochemical industry is the "predominant user of natural gas" by only comparing its usage among a subset of natural gas users as opposed to all natural gas users (The Mosaic Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1593).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Aug. 7 said the Commerce Department's use of only adverse facts available rates to set the rate for the non-individually examined respondents in antidumping proceedings, known as the "expected method," is not presumptively unreasonable. Judges Alan Lourie and Kara Stoll said instead that the "burden is on Commerce to justify a departure from the expected method, not to justify its use."
After its bid for a preliminary injunction was denied by Court of International Trade Judge Claire Kelly (see 2407260045), a customs broker fought Aug. 5 against a motion to dismiss its case, saying its complaint was ripe for litigation because CBP had already made the decision to deny its reinstatement to the agency's Entry Type 86 pilot (Seko Customs Brokerage v. United States, CIT # 24-00097).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 1 reassigned to Judge Gary Katzmann from Judge Timothy Stanceu two related antidumping duty scope cases regarding steel truck wheels from China. The lead plaintiffs in the proceedings are Asia Wheel Co. and Vanguard National Trailer Corp., which filed the cases to challenge the Commerce Department's "substantial transformation" analysis regarding steel truck wheels made in Thailand with either Chinese-origin rims or discs (see 2407020049). The court didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the switch (Asia Wheel Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00143) (Vanguard National Trailer Corp. v. U.S., CIt # 24-00034).
In a post-oral argument (see 2407250041) submission, all plaintiffs in a case regarding the scope of an antidumping duty order on steel wheels from China again pushed back against the government, saying that DOJ was misrepresenting communications during the order’s original investigation (Asia Wheel v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 23-00096).
An aluminum foil importer added its own motion for judgment to a stack of cases, primarily coming from the foil and solar panel industries, challenging the Commerce Department’s alleged overemphasis on only one or two factors out of the five used to analyze a product’s country of origin in evasion investigations (see 2407030064, 2406140059 and 2401230041) (Hanon Systems Alabama Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00013).
The Commerce Department on remand at the Court of International Trade revised the duty drawback adjustment for exporter Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret, resulting in a de minimis antidumping duty rate for the company in the AD investigation on common alloy aluminum sheet from Turkey (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 21-00246).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 1 said the International Trade Commission didn't establish an agency practice of considering U.S. investments by foreign producers as a distinctive condition of competition for cumulation analyses. Judge Gary Katzmann rejected exporter BlueScope Steel's claim that the ITC departed from its past practice in cumulating Australian hot-rolled steel exports with other nations' shipments as part of the five-year sunset review of the antidumping duty order on the steel goods.
A Chinese garlic exporter filed a complaint July 31 in the Court of International Trade claiming that the Commerce Department wrongly determined in an antidumping duty review that its U.S. sales were not bona fide and denied it a separate rate (Jining Huahui International Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00111).
The Commerce Department switched the basis on which it found the Korean government's full allotment of emissions permits under the Korean Emissions Trading System (K-ETS) was specific. Submitting its remand results under protest on July 31, Commerce said the full allotment of the permits was de facto specific after the Court of International Trade rejected the idea that the full allotment was de jure specific (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00170).