The Court of International Trade on Feb. 8, in a case brought by domestic petitioners, sustained the Commerce Department’s finding that a Chinese wood flooring exporter that had refused to participate as a 2018-2019 antidumping duty review’s mandatory respondent was still eligible for separate rate status. But the court's decision to allow Commerce to use adverse facts available against the exporter meant the review’s non-individually investigated separate rate respondents saw their rates jump from zero percent to 42.57%.

The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to "refuse to reopen" the issue of exporter Double Coin's eligibility for a separate antidumping duty rate in a suit returned to the appellate court after the company failed to raise the issue on its first visit to the Federal Circuit (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).

Importer Vanguard National Trailer Corp. challenged CBP's finding that the company evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on Chinese truck wheels, filing a complaint on Feb. 6 at the Court of International Trade. The importer said CBP improperly assessed AD/CVD on its entries from before May 12, 2021 -- the date on which the Commerce Department started a scope inquiry on whether Vanguard's truck wheels, imported from Thai manufacturer Asia Wheel, were covered by the AD/CVD orders (Vanguard National Trailer Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00034).

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 7 upheld CBP's decision to reverse its finding that importer Norca Industries Co. and International Piping & Procurement Group evaded the antidumping duty order on pipe fittings from China. The negative evasion finding came after CBP made a covered merchandise referral to the Commerce Department on remand. The referral found that the importers' carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings were outside the order's scope.

A group of U.S. mattress makers led by Brooklyn Bedding filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on Feb. 5 challenging the Commerce Department's decision to find exporter PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia's tri-folding mattresses were not within the scope of the antidumping duty order on mattresses from Indonesia (Brooklyn Bedding v. United States, CIT # 24-00002).

Chinese exporter Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. on Feb. 5 filed its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, contesting the surrogate data used by the Commerce Department in the agency's 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on activated carbon from China (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2413).

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The U.S. Senate on Feb. 5 confirmed the nomination of Joseph Laroski to serve as the next judge on the Court of International Trade. The nomination of Laroski, who most recently worked as a partner at antidumping and countervailing duty petitioners' firm Schagrin Associates, passed by a unanimous vote of 76-0.

Indonesian mattress exporter PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia and its affiliate PT Grantec Jaya Indonesia launched a challenge at the Court of International Trade against the Commerce Department's calculation of the exporter's constructed value and constructed export profit and selling expense ratios. The company objected to Commerce's use of financial data from Malaysian mattress maker Masterfoam Industries and Indian mattress conglomerate Kurlon Enterprise as surrogate sources (PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia v. United States, CIT # 24-00001).

German exporters, led by Ilsenburger Grobblech, filed an opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit challenging the Commerce Department's decision to use adverse facts available against exporter Salzgitter Mannesmann Stahlhandel in an antidumping duty investigation on cut-to-length carbon and alloy steel plate from Germany (Ilsenburger Grobblech GmbH v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1219).