The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate in an antidumping duty case involving Commerce's methods for identifying masked dumping, officially remanding the matter to the Commerce Department. In July 2021, the Federal Circuit held that Commerce must further explain its use of a statistical test when conducting its differential pricing analysis in an antidumping duty investigation (see 2107150032). The appellate court found that Commerce had failed to meet certain statistical requirements before running the Cohen's d test (Stupp Corporation v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #2020-1857).

CBP misclassified Mitsubishi Power America's supported selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalysts, resulting in the entries wrongly being assessed Section 301 duties, the importer argued in a Jan. 4 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Instead, the supported SCR catalysts fit under a different Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading that was granted an exclusion to the Section 301 China tariffs by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the importer said (Mitsubishi Power Americas v. U.S., CIT #21-00573).

The Commerce Department erred when it weight-averaged reported raw material premium costs (DIRMATMP) for all control numbers (CONNUMs) because that distorts their costs, antidumping duty respondent Assan Aluminyum Sanayi said in a Jan. 4 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The respondent further argued against Commerce's decisions to deduct the amount of Section 232 duties paid from its U.S. price, limit Assan's full duty drawback adjustment and treat certain management fees as indirect selling expenses (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #21-00616).

The Department of Justice mischaracterized plaintiff Jeld-Wen's position in its challenge to an International Trade Commission injury determination to support a "baseless exhaustion argument" and cover up the ITC's "erroneous and inconsistent like product analyses," Jeld-Wen said in a Dec. 23 reply brief. Instead, Jeld-Wen argued, it had exhausted all administrative remedies over its like product challenge and its claims over the deficiencies in the ITC's like product analyses are backed by substantial evidence (Jeld-Wen, Inc.v. U.S., CIT #21-00114).

The Court of International Trade granted a stay in an antidumping duty case brought by Interpipe Ukraine until the question over the legality of reducing the U.S. price by the amount of Section 232 duties paid is sorted out. In particular, Interpipe Ukraine's case is stayed until an action brought by Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret is fully decided at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, since that case also concerns the question of Section 232 reductions (see 2106170026). CIT has held that the Commerce Department can reduce a respondent's U.S. price by the amount of Section 232 duties paid in an AD case (Interpipe Ukraine LLC v. U.S., CIT #21-00530).

A group of domestic chloropicrin producers will appeal a November Court of International Trade decision that found that the Commerce Department didn't abuse its discretion when it denied the producers' bid to retroactively extend a filing deadline. According to the Jan. 3 notice of appeal, the chloropicrin producers -- Trinity Manufacturing, Ahsta Chemicals and Niklor Chemical Company -- will take their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the decision, the trade court didn't buy the plaintiffs' excuses that the deadline was missed due to a combination of technical and medical issues. The court subsequently upheld Commerce's rejection of the extension requests following revocation of the relevant antidumping duty order because of the missed deadline (Trinity Manufacturing Inc., et al. v. U.S., CIT #20-03831).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted antidumping duty petitioner Welspun Tubular's bid for an extension of time to request a full-court rehearing of a key decision. The petitioner now has until Feb. 8 to ask the full Federal Circuit to reconsider a decision which found that the Commerce Department can no longer make a particular market situation adjustment to an AD respondent's cost of production in a sales-below-cost test for the purposes of calculating normal value (see 2112100039). Petitions for en banc rehearings were originally due Jan. 9. Welspun won the extension after characterizing the appeal as one that is "critically important" to the petitioner and many other domestic producers of goods subject to ADD orders (see 2112290027) (Hyundai Steel Company v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-1748).

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

The Commerce Department was wrong to deny antidumping duty review respondent Noksel's claimed duty drawback adjustment due to the fact that its inward processing certificate (IPC) wasn't closed, plaintiff Noksel Celik Borun Sanayi told the Court of International Trade in a Dec. 23 brief. Noksel argued that it properly demonstrated that it qualifies for the full duty drawback adjustment since all imports and exports under the IPC have been completed and it is no longer permitted by the Turkish government to add import or export information (Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi A.S. v. U.S., CIT #21-00140).

The Commerce Department's actions in calculating the all-others rate in an antidumping investigation were "patently unreasonable," plywood importers argued in Dec. 29 comments on Commerce's remand results. Submitting their arguments to the Court of International Trade, the importers, led by Taraca Pacific, went after Commerce's method for finding the all-others rate when the agency itself recognized that the petition separate rate application rates the all-others rate was based on was only "to some extent" representative of the separate rate plaintiffs' dumping margin (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #18-00002).