The Commerce Department failed to show on remand that antidumping duty respondent Nexco's acquisition prices are a "reasonable proxy for the cost of production of raw honey" as part of the AD investigation on raw honey from Argentina, Nexco said in remand comments at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's policy regarding unprocessed raw agricultural products where it bases cost of production on the cost of making the raw goods, even when the respondent isn't the producer, stands "in contrast to Commerce's policy regarding processed agricultural products where the exporter is the producer," the brief said (Nexco v. United States, CIT # 22-00203).

The U.S. articulated a theory of fraud but did not "plead fraud with particularity" in its case against importer Katana Racing seeking over $5.7 million in unpaid safeguard duties on Chinese tires, Katana argued in a renewed motion to dismiss at the Court of International Trade. Again seeking to dispatch of the case following the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's remand kicking the matter back to the trade court, the importer said the govenrment's case did not touch on the "who, what, when, where, and how of the alleged fraud" as required by the Supreme Court in making a pleading, particularly one for fraud (United States v. Katana Racing, CIT # 19-00125).

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The Commerce Department again failed to establish that Germany's KAV program is de jure specific as part of the countervailing duty investigation on forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Nov. 14 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly said that just because the subsidy program is limited, in this case to certain customers based on energy usage, doesn't mean that it is de jure specific. Commerce didn't explain how the program limits usage to certain industries or enterprises and failed to consider the program's economic and horizontal properties and application, the opinion said.

The Commerce Department didn't properly apply the "proper statutory test for affiliation" between antidumping duty respondent Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. and one of its customers, BNK Steel Co., the Court of International Trade ruled in a Nov. 13 opinion. Judge Stephen Vaden said that Commerce, as part of the 2019-20 AD review of circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, erred in basing its finding of affiliation between the two companies on a single shared human resources manager and the mere speculation that there could have been other ties between the companies.

President Donald Trump didn't clearly misconstrue the statute when he revoked a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Nov. 13. Granting the president wider discretion to make modifications to Section 201 duties, Judges Alan Lourie, Richard Taranto and Leonard Stark said that the statute -- Section 2254(b)(1)(B) of the Trade Act of 1930 -- allows for trade-restricting modifications, as opposed to only trade-liberalizing ones.

A U.S. semiconductor company and a Canadian electronics component manufacturer are locked in a legal battle that could have implications for the export compliance responsibilities of sellers and buyers, particularly within the chip industry.

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 8 upheld a Commerce Department scope ruling that importer Valeo North America's T-series aluminum sheet is covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China. Judge Mark Barnett sustained Commerce's consideration of and weight applied to various industry evidence along with its detailed discussion of heat treatment.

The Commerce Department arbitrarily rejected arguments from Canadian softwood lumber exporter Resolute FP Canada -- despite a "good cause" showing by Resolute -- when it found the company would be likely to continue dumping, in the final results of a sunset review, Resolute said in its Nov. 6 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Resolute FP Canada v. U.S., CIT # 23-00095).

The Commerce Department erroneously used Malaysian tariff schedule subheading 4402.90.1000 as the surrogate value for coal-based carbonized materials in an antidumping review of activated carbon instead of the broader Harmonized System subheading 4402.90, exporters Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. and Carbon Activated Corp. argued. Filing their opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the exporters said Commerce's decision was based on "inaccurate and unsupported factual findings" (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2135).