Defendant-appellees in an anti-circumvention case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit employ a "'pay no attention to what's behind the curtain' approach" as it relates to exporter Al Ghurair Iron & Steel's (AGIS) level of investment in the United Arab Emirates, AGIS argued in a June 1 brief. Replying to briefs from the U.S. and petitioner Steel Dynamics, AGIS said the appellees failed to show why enough evidence backs the Commerce Department's value-added calculations to justify the use of an unreasonable investment comparison methodology or to show that Commerce's disregard of numerous patterns of trade was reasonable (Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1199).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska in a May 25 opinion found that shipments from two Alaskan shipping companies, Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management, do not qualify for an exception of the Jones Act. Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that the shipments do not qualify for the Third Proviso of the Jones Act since they do not engage in transportation over a Canadian rail line.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion, Hitachi Energy USA v. U.S., appeared in two antidumping duty cases as a supplemental authority, according to two notices at the Court of International Trade. The May 24 opinion said the Commerce Department improperly used adverse facts available over a respondent's reporting of service-related revenue. The court ruled that Commerce's change of methodology and later finding that the respondent failed to provide all the required sales data in the right form cut against the statutory requirement to provide notice and opportunity to remedy a deficiency (see 2205240028). The appellate court said that Commerce has no right to use AFA unless the respondent has failed to provide the requested information after being notified of the deficiency.
Arguments from plaintiff-appellants in an antidumping duty case, led by Carbon Activated Tianjin Co., are merely a bid to have the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit impermissibly re-weigh the record evidence over surrogate value questions, defendant-appellees Calgon Carbon Corp. and Norbit Americas argued in a May 31 reply brief. Also filing its reply brief was DOJ, arguing that the Commerce Department properly picked Malaysia over Romania as the primary surrogate country (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. Ltd. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1298).
Plaintiff-appellants in a case challenging the termination of an antidumping duty suspension agreement filed a motion for a panel or full court rehearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after the court found that the appellants made no plausible challenge to the termination. Appellants Bioparques de Occidente, Agricola La Primavera and Kaliroy said the court's decision was made "despite the absence of any briefing or arguments on the matter in this appeal," raising serious fairness and due process concerns (Bioparques de Occidente v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #20-2265).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential May 31 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia. In a letter on the opinion, Judge Richard Eaton gave the litigants until June 7 to review the bracketed confidential information. The case, brought by U.S. Steel Corp., challenges Commerce's alleged failure to address the company's arguments over whether a reimbursement of the antidumping duties was occurring between the Australian producer and its affiliated U.S. importer (United States Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT #20-03815).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should reverse the Court of International Trade's judgment sustaining the International Trade Commission's finding that imports of fabricated structural steel from Canada, Chile and Mexico did not harm the domestic industry, petitioner Full Member Subgroup of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) said in a May 27 reply brief. The appellees in the case are "not even in agreement amongst themselves" over what the ITC decided in the case or why, and they have "failed to adequately defend" the "specific legal issues" raised by AISC, the brief said (Full Member Subgroup of the American Institute of Steel Construction v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1176).
The Commerce Department again defended the use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis to detect "masked" dumping in remand results filed on May 26 at the Court of International Trade. Responding to the court's order instructing the agency to address questions on the use of the test raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Commerce said that the appellate court's chief concern -- that the test as used by Commerce did not satisfy certain statistical criteria -- is not applicable in the present case (Marmen Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00169).
The Commerce Department failed to properly consider the "extremely disproportionate and prejudicial result" that stemmed from its decision to reject an untimely filing in an antidumping sunset review that led to the revocation of the order, three U.S. chemical companies argued in a May 31 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Commerce's "exceedingly narrow view" of what qualifies as an "extraordinary circumstance" isn't supported by the statute, evidence or the agency's own prior practice, given that Commerce said the U.S. companies' counsel's medical issues didn't qualify as such a circumstance, the brief said (Trinity Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1329).