The Commerce Department properly found it had enough industry support to kick off the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products (QSP) from India, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a Jan. 5 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade's ruling, Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Sharon Prost ruled that Commerce permissibly found the term "producer" did not include QSP fabricators and backed its finding that fabricators are not producers with substantial evidence via its six-factor production-related activities test.

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 20 opinion made public Jan. 4 upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China. In the remand results, Commerce dropped its use of partial adverse facts available for unreported factors of production data, reverting to neutral facts available, and changed how it values silver paste using Malaysian surrogate data. The agency maintained positions previously sent back by the trade court on how to value backsheets and ethyl vinyl acetate using surrogate data, offering new explanations now to Judge Claire Kelly's liking.

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 22 opinion granted plaintiff Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee's motion for a preliminary injunction in an Enforce and Protect Act case. Judge Richard Eaton ruled that the industry group sufficiently proved that it will be "immediately and irreparably" harmed without the injunction barring liquidation of importer Kingtom Aluminio's aluminum extrusions until the litigation has ended. The judge also ruled that "it cannot be said at this time that Plaintiff does not have a 'fair chance' of success on the merits" given CBP has asked for voluntary remand or reversed itself in several cases with the same merchandise and parties.

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 21 opinion sent back a Commerce Department scope ruling that importer Valeo North America's heat-treated T-series aluminum sheet is covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China. Judge Mark Barnett took issue with Commerce's interpretation of the phrase "3XXX-series" in the scope to include certain unregistered alloys under the order. The judge also remanded the case for Commerce to address evidence that Valeo's product undergoes heat-treatment.

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 21 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's fourth remand results in a case on the antidumping duty investigation of hardwood plywood from China. For the fifth time, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sent back Commerce's calculation of the all-others rate, which the agency determined by averaging a de minimis and an adverse facts available rate. The judge said "Commerce created its own problem" by selecting only two respondents, resulting in "sparse information" to back its assertions.

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 21 opinion denied U.S. Steel's motion to intervene in a case brought by Seneca Foods over the Commerce Department's denial of Section 232 exclusion requests. The trade court cited the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in California Steel Industries v. U.S. in which the appellate court denied U.S. Steel the right to intervene in a different Section 232 exclusion denial challenge. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that the precedent establishes that the steelmaker does have the right to intervene under the trade court's rules.

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 20 opinion denied an injunction bid pending appeal from certain plaintiffs in a conflict-of interest suit. After recently rejecting the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Judge Gary Katzmann this time rejected the injunction motion pending appeal since the appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "has not yet been noticed," but even if it had, the injunction "is unwarranted." Katzmann said the plaintiffs fail to both show a "strong showing of success on the merits" and prove that they will suffer irreparable harm without the injunction. The case was brought by Amsted Rail Co. to contest its former counsel's alleged ethical violations via its use of the company's confidential information in an antidumping and countervailing duty injury proceeding.

The Court of International Trade on Dec. 19 ruled that the Commerce Department improperly excluded certain solar cell sales from antidumping respondent Inventec Solar Energy Corp.'s (ISEC's) dumping margin based on its finding that ISEC did not have any actual or constructive knowledge that its goods would ultimately end up in the United States. Judge Leo Gordon said that given "the totality of the record, the court cannot sustain as reasonable" the finding that ISEC did not have actual knowledge of the solar cells' destination.

The Court of International Trade in a pair of Dec. 16 opinions upheld the Commerce Department's decisions to exclude importers Worldwide Door Components' and Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. After previously remanding the decision for not being submitted in a form that was judicially reviewable, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that this time around the agency has made a scope decision "in a form the court is able to sustain."

The Court of International Trade for the second time upheld the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available in a countervailing duty case based on the Chinese government's failure to submit information about the Export Buyer's Credit Program. Judge Timothy Reif in a Dec. 8 opinion made public Dec. 16 said information about participating banks was vital enough to Commerce's efforts to verify non-use of the program that the refusal to provide the information justified the use of AFA. The court differentiated the case from another countervailing duty proceeding in which Commerce verified non-use without the requested information, finding in the other case the agency had non-use certifications from the respondent's U.S. customers -- something they did not have in the present case.