The Commerce Department tapped a new third-country company's financial statement to use for surrogate values in an antidumping duty review after the Court of International Trade remanded its decision for a third time. Submitting its remand results to CIT on April 12, the agency halved mandatory respondent Oman Fasteners' dumping margin from 9.10% to 4.22% (Mid Continent Steel & Wire Inc. v. United States, CIT Consol. #15-00214).

The Commerce Department's conclusion that Dominican manufacturer Kingtom Aluminio had exports subject to the antidumping duty order on aluminum extrusions from China based on CBP's Enforce and Protect Act investigation is an "abdication of its legal responsibility" to conduct administrative reviews, Kingtom said in an April 8 complaint. Taking its grievance to the Court of International Trade, Kingtom also said that the decision to find that the exporter had goods subject to the AD order based on adverse facts available is a due process violation (Kingtom Aluminio v. U.S., CIT #22-00072 to -00079).

Importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, had to file a protest to properly establish jurisdiction to challenge the liquidation of its entries, DOJ argued in an April 8 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Responding to SIS's arguments that there was nothing to protest at the time since the countervailing duty rate was not final, DOJ said that this position is incorrect since the importer should have moved to suspend liquidation during the CVD review. Failing to do so precluded the ability to judicially challenge the liquidations, the brief said (Acquisition 362, LLC dba Strategic Import Supply v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1161).

The Commerce Department granted a level-of-trade (LOT) adjustment for antidumping duty respondent Productos Laminados de Monterrey (Prolamsa) on remand at the Court of International Trade, reversing course from its previous position. Finding that the totality of evidence supports the position that Prolamsa made sales at two levels of trade, Commerce dropped Prolamsa's dumping rate from 7.47% to 0.89% (Productos Laminados de Monterrey S.A. de C.V. v. U.S., CIT #20-00166).

Three judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit probed the question of whether a group of U.S. steel companies, led by U.S. Steel Corp., could intervene in a spate of cases challenging the Commerce Department's decision to deny certain importers exclusions to Section 232 steel and aluminum duties. During an April 7 oral argument, Chief Judge Kimberly Moore and Judges Pauline Newman and Todd Hughes expressed serious doubt as to whether the steel companies could join the exclusion challenges (California Steel Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2172).

The Commerce Department had to draw a line somewhere, and its use of a test to distinguish the production activities of producers and fabricators to determine industry support in antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigations on quartz surface products from India is in line with the law and prior court precedent, DOJ said in a reply brief filed April 6 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit signaled during an April 6 oral argument that whether a country is a non-market economy would not stand as a criterion in determining whether to grant an import first sale valuation. Responding to arguments from John Peterson, counsel for importer and plaintiff Meyer Corp. and Beverly Farrell of DOJ, three Federal Circuit judges -- Judge Todd Hughes in particular -- said that it was unlikely the government would succeed in defending the use of this criterion in customs law, as non-market economy principle is reserved for trade remedy laws (Meyer Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1932).

The Commerce Department's finding that two EU agriculture subsidies -- the Basic Payment Scheme and sustainable land use (Greening) payments -- are de jure specific is illegal and defies a key past court ruling, exporters Agro Sevilla Aceitunas and Angel Camacho Alimentacion said in an April 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Building off a case currently at the trade court in which the court held that these subsidies are not de jure specific, Agro Sevilla and Camacho also challenged Commerce's definitions of "prior stage product" and "latter stage product," among other things (Agro Sevilla Aceitunas S. Coop. v. United States, CIT #22-00106).

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The Court of International Trade remanded parts of the 2018 countervailing duty review on utility scale wind towers from Vietnam in a March 24 opinion made public April 4. Judge Timothy Reif sent the case back to the Commerce Department for it to address evidence submitted by the CVD petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition over alleged manipulation of the denominators used in the benefit calculation and to substantiate its conclusion that respondent CS Wind Vietnam didn't import its steel plate, thereby neglecting an import duty exemption subsidy.