US, Vietnamese Steel Pipe Exporter Oppose Consolidation of 3 Circumvention Cases

On April 5, a Vietnamese steel pipe exporter sought to limit, and the U.S. opposed, domestic petitioners’ attempt to consolidate three of the exporter’s cases in the Court of International Trade (SeAH Steel VINA Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00256, -00257, -00258).

The exporter, SeAH Steel VINA Corporation, filed its complaints in January contesting the Commerce Department’s determination that it was circumventing antidumping orders on hot-rolled steel from China, South Korea and India, three countries from which it sources raw materials (see 2401050019). Defendant-intervenors led by Bull Moose Tube Company asked the trade court March 20 to consolidate the cases into one.

The appeals should be consolidated for the purposes of briefing and argument, but each case’s joint appendix should be submitted separately, SeAH argued.

The cases share common issues of law, but each contests a different circumvention ruling and has its own record, the exporter said. It said that combining the cases would promote judicial efficiency, but combining each record as well could potentially cause “unnecessary confusion."

The government opposed the defendant-intervenors' motion, saying that combining the cases would create too high a risk of record conflation. It also said that consolidation was “likely to create more, not less, work for the parties and the Court,” meaning it wouldn’t increase "judicial economy."

Keeping the cases separate would actually increase the court’s efficiency, the U.S. said.

“If the Court is faced with a common question of law or fact across the three cases, there is no need to reinvent the wheel after reaching a conclusion in one case,” it said.

SeAH’s battle resembles the fight being waged by another exporter, Hoa Phat Steel Pipe, who also filed three complaints after another circumvention case held it was dodging similar AD orders (see 2403210024).