The Commerce Department shouldn't have relied on adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review on tapered roller bearings from China for a fully cooperative entity that attempted to obtain information from its suppliers but couldn't secure their cooperation, Chinese bearing exporter Shanghai Tainai Bearing said in a July 13 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Court precedent doesn't require a party to provide information not in its possession and which it can't reasonably obtain, the company said (Shanghai Tainai Bearing v. U.S., CIT # 23-00020).

The Court of International Trade on July 14 upheld the Commerce Department's decisions in an antidumping duty review to disregard respondent Nexteel's accounting method and classify the company's losses from suspension of production lines as general and administrative expenses (G&A) instead of costs of goods sold (COGS). Judge Claire Kelly said that Commerce, in the 2016-2017 administrative review on welded line pipe from South Korea, "adequately explains that the depreciation and other costs" linked with suspended production lines "are more akin to a company-wide cost" instead of a cost of manufacturing borne by specific products.

The Court of International Trade in a July 13 opinion dismissed a lawsuit from PrimeSource Building Products against President Donald Trump's move to expand Section 232 national security tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivative" products pursuant to the mandate issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The Commerce Department stuck with its use of adverse facts available for countervailing duty respondent Risen Energy for its alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, in spite of a second Court of International Trade remand requiring Commerce to reconsider the issue, among others. In the remand results, Commerce also reevaluated its use of Thai land prices when calculating benefits for respondents JA Solar and Risen and its benchmark data for ocean freight, dropping JA Solar's CVD rate from 7.75% to 7.68% and Risen's from 9.84% to 9.69% (Risen Energy v. U.S., CIT # 20-03912).

The Court of International Trade remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. CIT Judge Jane Restani in a July 11 opinion upheld Commerce's tier-three benchmark calculation for natural gas, which included the import-specific 20% value-added tax and 5% import duty, along with the agency's decision to countervail phosphate rock mining licenses issued by the Russian government to exporters EuroChem and PhosAgro. Restani remanded Commerce's decision to use a "profit before tax" figure to account for exported phosphate rock prices when calculating PhosAgro's profit ratio, as well as Commerce's reliance on PhosAgro's cost information and its explanation for why it found EuroChem's cost information supported.

CBP's Office of Regulations and Rulings (ORR) ignored key evidence when it reversed the same agency's Trade Remedy & Law Enforcement Directorate's (TRLED) finding that importer Scioto Valley Woodworking evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, petitioner American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance said in a July 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. U.S., CIT # 23-00140).

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The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on July 11 ordered U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman to "engage in informal mediation" with at least one of her appeals court colleagues -- Judges Kimberly Moore, Sharon Prost or Richard Taranto -- regarding the trio's investigation on Newman's fitness to continue serving on the Federal Circuit. The mediation shall occur before Judge Thomas Griffith, who sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2020 (Pauline Newman v. Kimberly A. Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 11 opinion affirmed the Court of International Trade's opinion upholding the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against countervailing duty respondent Jangho Group in a case on the 2013 review of the CVD order on aluminum extrusions from China. The two-page order from Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Tiffany Cunningham was issued without an explanation of the ruling.

Judge Todd Hughes at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during July 10 oral argument expressed doubt over antidumping duty petitioner Wheatland Tube's claim that the Commerce Department can make a cost-based particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test where normal value is based on constructed value. The judge referenced the Federal Circuit's past ruling in Hyundai Steel v. U.S., which found that cost-based PMS adjustments cannot be made to the sales-below-cost test (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1175).