Jacob Kopnick

The Commerce Department will reconsider its application of the major input rule, treatment of certain general and administrative expenses and its use of adverse facts available in an antidumping duty case, according to two Aug. 18 Court of International Trade opinions. After remanding the case once before, Judge Leo Gordon remanded certain elements of the results yet again, but did sustain certain parts of Commerce's reconsideration, including its differential pricing analysis and adjustment of interest expenses to include a portion of the respondent's parent holding company's interest expense.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Court of International Trade created an “impermissible distinction” under customs valuation law between goods from non-market and market economies when it denied importer Meyer Corp. first sale valuation, the importer argued in an Aug. 9 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Kicking off litigation in the much-anticipated appeal proceedings, Meyer argued against the alleged impermissibility of CIT's first sale rejection and for its qualifications for the special valuation status (Meyer Corporation, U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1932).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The U.S.' voluntary remand request in two Section 232 exclusion cases should be denied in its current form since the government's delayed, tranched solution is "unconscionable," steel importers Allegheny Technologies Inc. and California Steel Industries argued in an Aug. 16 reply brief. Given that Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests are supposed to be decided within 106 days, the Commerce Department's proposed nine to 12 month schedule to reconsider CSI's exclusion requests is "unreasonable" with a "nonsensical" rationale, CSI argued (Allegheny Technologies Incorporated et al. v. U.S., CIT #20-03923)(California Steel Industries, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00015).

The Commerce Department's remand results following an opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over an antidumping duty administrative review should be remanded yet again, mandatory respondent Bosun Tools Co. said in comments at the Court of International Trade. Commerce should have applied neutral facts available instead of adverse facts available when weighing Bosun's country of origin information using a first-in-first-out (FIFO) methodology, Bosun said. Even if this use of AFA is sustained, it should be limited to missing information and not applied to the U.S. sales prices for reported-FIFO sales, as Commerce did, Bosun suggested (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers' Coalition v. United States, CIT #17-00167).

The Commerce Department does not need to "poll the industry" to find out if over half of the domestic industry supports an antidumping or countervailing duty petition, Judge Leo Gordon of the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 16 letter. Responding to consolidated plaintiff M S International's request for a remand directing Commerce to poll the industry or "collect additional information establishing whether there was industry support" for the contested AD/CVD petition, Gordon said this request stemmed from a misunderstanding of the law (Pokarna Engineered Stone Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-00127).

Antidumping petitioner U.S. Steel Corporation and the two mandatory respondents in the contested antidumping duty review, SeAH Steel Co. and NEXTEEL Co., submitted their comments on the Commerce Department's remand results at the Court of International Trade. U.S. Steel spoke out against Commerce's flip on its finding of a particular market situation for South Korean steel while the respondents argued against the agency's reallocation of suspended product line and inventory valuation losses to general and administrative expenses and Commerce's decision to deduct a portion of SeAH's G&A expenses of a U.S. affiliate for further manufacturing costs (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).

Target's attempt to fight off the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss a customs case at the Court of International Trade falls flat, DOJ argued in an Aug. 13 reply brief. Following practices codified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, CIT properly ordered the reliquidation of improperly liquidated ironing tables from China, DOJ said, backing the court's authority to do so (Target Corp. v. U.S., CIT #21-00162).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: