The Commerce Department failed to explain its deviation from its past decision finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's first through third debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable, the Court of International Trade said in a July 7 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that the evidence Commerce cited in justifying the past decision did not directly deal with these three restructurings and is thus "not a sufficient explanation to justify departing from its standard practice." Choe-Groves also sent back Commerce's uncreditworthy benchmark rate because the department failed to address potentially contradictory evidence as part of the 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel goods from South Korea.

A new U.K. law that could prevent lawyers from providing certain legal services in the context of Russia sanctions is causing uncertainty within the legal industry, law firms said. Baker McKenzie said the legal community is working with U.K. authorities to “clarify the scope of the new sanctions measures,” but “in lieu of any imminent published guidance, businesses should assess” their in-house legal teams, particularly if they’re providing legal advisory services from the U.K.

The Court of International Trade on July 6 again remanded the Commerce Department's refusal to start a successor-in-interest changed circumstances review for exporter GreenFirst Forest Products under the countervailing duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada, finding the agency did not address CIT's concerns in an initial remand about how the agency's successor-in-interest practice applies to non-individually examined companies

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 5 dismissed importer Amsted Rail's conflict-of-interest suit concerning attorney Daniel Pickard and his firm, Buchanan Ingersoll, in an injury proceeding at the International Trade Commission. Amsted Rail filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal a few days prior in the suit that the Court of International Trade previously dismissed for lack of jurisdiction (see 2211160057).

The duty drawback methodology applied by the Commerce Department to Turkish exporter Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret is "fundamentally flawed" and cuts against the statute's plain language, antidumping duty petitioner Aluminum Association Common Alloy Aluminum Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group told the Court of International Trade in a brief on Commerce's remand results on the AD investigation on common alloy aluminum sheet from Turkey (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #21-00246).

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The Court of International Trade should not have found that importer Worldwide Door Components' and Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds were excluded from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, petitioner Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its opening brief. The committee said that both the Commerce Department and the Federal Circuit have repeatedly said that the scope's descriptions of "extrusions" covers aluminum extrusions incorporated into assemblies (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1532).

Importer Amsted Rail Co. filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal in a conflict-of-interest suit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit against the International Trade Commission for not barring attorney Daniel Pickard and his firm Buchanan Ingersoll from an AD/CVD injury proceeding. The Court of International Trade previously dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, pointing out that the case could potentially be refiled once the injury determination wraps up (see 2211160057) (Amsted Rail Co. v. ITC, Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

CBP did not misapply the substantial evidence standard in finding that importers American Pacific Plywood, U.S. Global Forest and InterGlobal Forest evaded the antidumping and countervailing duties on hardwood plywood products from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a June 22 opinion made public June 30.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a June 30 order accepted the amended opening brief and addendum filed by Kazakh exporter Tau-Ken Temir in a case on the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available due to missed filing deadlines in an antidumping duty review. In submitting its amended brief, TKT submitted a version of its original opening brief with corrections sought by the clerk of the court and also a version with these corrections plus corrections additionally requested by the exporter. The appellate court accepted only the first form of these submissions (Tau-Ken Temir v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).