The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies took effect Sept. 15 during a special General Council meeting after instruments of acceptance were received from Brazil, Kenya, Vietnam and Tonga, the WTO announced. Those acceptances brought the total number over the two-thirds threshold needed for the deal to enter into force (see 2508250013).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 15 sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand to replace existing Brazilian surrogate value information for antidumping duty respondent Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry's plywood input with Malaysian import data. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves upheld the move, which led to a slight drop in Senmao's AD rate to 14.35% from 16.17%, after no challenges to the remand results were received.
The Commerce Department properly decided not to collapse an Italian antidumping duty respondent with its Romanian input supplier on the grounds that the input supplier isn't a "producer" of subject merchandise as defined by the AD statute, the Court of International Trade held on Sept. 15. Judge M. Miller Baker said Commerce's justification isn't impermissibly post hoc, despite the fact that it wasn't established during the challenged AD review, since the issue is "one of statutory construction."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decided Sept. 12 to stay proceedings in California's case against the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, though it denied the government's stay request in a similar case brought by members of the Blackfeet Nation tribe. Oral argument in the tribal members' lawsuit remains scheduled for Sept. 17 before Judges William Fletcher, Ronald Gould and Ana de Alba (State of California v. Donald J. Trump, 9th Cir. # 25-3493) (Susan Webber v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 9th Cir. # 25-2717).
Antidumping duty respondent Jiangxi Brother Pharmaceutical on Sept. 11 filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on vanillin from China. The respondent challenged Commerce's "calculation of the surrogate value for the by-product Hydroquinone," selection of the financial statements used as the basis for the financial ratios used in the surrogate value calculation, and the use of the Cohen's d test to detect "masked" dumping (Jiangxi Brother Pharmaceutical Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00187).
The Court of International Trade sustained CBP's finding that importer Scioto Valley Woodworking evaded the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, in a confidential decision issued Sept. 12. Judge Lisa Wang said the evasion finding, which CBP flipped on remand, is supported by "substantial evidence and complies with the court's instructions" (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. United States, CIT # 23-00140).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 11 sustained the Commerce Department's 2017 review of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China, after the agency added a second respondent on remand and reconsidered certain benchmark calculations. Judge Timothy Reif said that no party objected to Commerce's remand results (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 20-03885).
The Court of International Trade properly found that a product is "imported" for duty drawback purposes when it's admitted into a foreign-trade zone and not when entered for domestic consumption, the U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 11 reply brief. The government said CIT properly defined the term "importations" according to both common meaning and judicial precedent as "foreign merchandise coming into the United States" (King Maker Marketing v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1819).
The International Trade Commission provided "impermissible post hoc rationalizations" for its determination of a lack of adverse price effects on glass wine bottles from China, the U.S. Glass Producers Coalition argued in a Sept. 8 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The coalition argued that the commission failed to "fully engage" with the petitioner's arguments regarding "contemporaneous business documentation and lost sales" and doubled down on its "illogical determinations as to price suppression and the effects of an inventory overhang in the market" (U.S. Glass Producers Coalition v. United States, CIT # 24-00199).
Exporter Zhejiang Dingli Machinery challenged the Commerce Department's decisions made on remand to use Maersk data to value ocean freight and value minor fabricated components using Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8431.20.90 data. Filing a response to the agency's remand results in a case on the antidumping duty investigation on mobile access equipment from China, Dingli said the Maersk price quotes are unreliable and that the agency strayed from its normal practice in picking the data for subheading 8431.20.90 (Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment v. United States, CIT # 22-00152).