CIT Grants AD Petitioners' Bid to File Response Out of Time Despite Exporter's Objection

The Court of International Trade in a July 31 order granted a motion from antidumping duty petitioners led by ArcelorMittal Tubular Products seeking to file its response to the court's questions for oral argument out of time. Judge Gary Katzmann granted the request despite exporter Goodluck India's motion to clarify whether the company had to respond to the submission, seeing as the petitioners filed their response nearly an hour late without filing a request to file it out of time (Goodluck India v. United States, CIT # 22-00024).

Goodluck said that it "understands that filing instructions can be missed," but the petitioners "apparently do not share this understanding and instead seem to have a zero tolerance policy for filing transgressions." The company said counsel for ArcelorMittal in separate appeals defended the Commerce Department's rejection of submissions in AD cases that were filed just 21 minutes late.

After ArcelorMittal filed the motion for leave to file out of time, Goodluck took no position on the motion and did not file a response. The petitioners' response was deemed filed in the case contesting Commerce's AD assessment on Goodluck's entries even though they were allegedly not subject to the AD order on cold-drawn mechanical tubing of carbon and alloy steel from India at the time (see 2212010024).