CIT Mulling Stay of AD Case in Light of Federal Circuit Case Over PMS in Korea

The Court of International Trade is considering staying two antidumping cases until a related question has concluded litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said in a May 13 letter. In the Federal Circuit, a particular market situation (PMS) finding for certain oil country tubular goods from South Korea is being challenged and could be determined to be directly relevant to exporter SeAH Steel Corp.'s cases in CIT (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT # 19-00086 and # 20-00150). The Department of Justice broached the idea of a stay until the Federal Circuit case, brought by Nexteel Co., is settled in another SeAH challenge of the same Commerce Department determination (see 2105120028). Responses in both SeAH cases to the question of a stay are due by May 17.

The Federal Circuit case, Nexteel Co. v. U.S. (#2021-1334), is on appeal from CIT's ruling against Commerce's application of a PMS finding under similar circumstances. In both that case and in the agency’s final results on South Korean circular welded pipe, the agency found that a PMS prevented it from using its normal comparison of an exporter’s actual home market prices to the prices of its exports to the U.S., forcing it to calculate constructed value for the home market. Commerce then, again citing the PMS, adjusted production costs used to calculate the constructed value.