The Court of International Trade on Nov. 30 consolidated three court cases, all challenging the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018-2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel flanges from India. The three cases are now consolidated under the action brought by Kisaan Die Tech Private Limited and all concern whether Commerce's all-others rate calculation was in accordance with the law. In the review, the agency hit the one mandatory respondent with adverse facts available, then extended this rate to all other respondents (see 2109140030). Kisaan challenged this action, arguing that "all other" respondents never failed to cooperate with Commerce's review, precluding the agency from hitting them with AFA (Kissan Die Tech Private Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00512).

The Commerce Department's refusal to calculate a non-adverse facts available rate for all other respondents in a countervailing duty review is not in accordance with the law, steel wheel importer Rimco said in its Nov. 30 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The agency's move of averaging the AFA rates to come up with a 388.1% all-others rate in the review is not backed by substantial evidence and cuts against a past CIT ruling, Rimco said (Rimco, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00588).

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

The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia covering entries in 2016-2017, in a Nov. 30 confidential opinion. The case, filed by mandatory respondent BlueScope Steel Ltd., challenged the final results for hitting BlueScope with adverse facts available. The seven-count action alleged, among other things, that Commerce's decision to apply AFA based on the fact that BlueScope withheld requested information is contradicted by record evidence. In a letter submitted to the litigants, Judge Richard Eaton said he wants bracketed information reviewed by Dec. 7 (BlueScope Steel Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00057).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on Nov. 29 in a case in which it found it lacked jurisdiction over a tapered roller bearing importer's challenge to guidance issued from the Commerce Department to CBP on the assessment of antidumping duties. In the Sept. 2 decision, the appellate court upheld the Court of International Trade decision denying Wanxing America Corporation's bid to challenge the guidance under the trade court's residual jurisdiction, Section 1581(i). The Federal Circuit said the action could've been properly filed under Sections 1581(a) or 1581(c). WAC argued it should have been subject to its parent company's zero percent dumping rate (see 2109020039) (Wanxiang America Corporation v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 20-1044).

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

The Commerce Department erred by including both research and development expenses for non-subject goods and "compensation for payment" expenses for non-subject merchandise in the general and administrative (G&A) expense calculation during an antidumping duty review, exporter Nagase and Co. said in a Nov. 24 complaint. Filing its case at the Court of International Trade, Nagase also pushed back against the Commerce Department's calculation of the assessment rate (Nagase & Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00574).

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

Royal Brush Manufacturing, Inc. will appeal an October Court of International Trade opinion that upheld CBP's finding that it evaded antidumping duties on cased pencils from China, according to a Nov. 29 notice of appeal. The pencil importer will appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. CIT originally remanded the case to CBP after finding that the customs agency did not provide adequate public summaries of business confidential information during the evasion investigation. Chief Judge Mark Barnett then upheld the evasion determination after finding that CBP cleared this hurdle and that the summaries did not violate Royal Brush's due process rights (see 2111010036) (Royal Brush Manufacturing, Inc. v. United States, CIT #19-00198).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on Nov. 29 following its decision sustaining the Commerce Department's decision to hit antidumping respondent Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems Co. with adverse facts available. The appellate court upheld a Court of International Trade decision in a case over the fifth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from South Korea, which also sustained Commerce's decision to cancel verification of Hyundai's information (see 2110040030) (Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems Co., Ltd. v. United States, et al., Fed. Cir. #21-1009).