The Commerce Department adequately addressed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's concerns over its use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping, the Court of International Trade held in a Feb. 24 opinion sustaining use of the test in an antidumping duty investigation.

The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's interpretation of the Major Inputs Rule to allow for the use of third-country surrogate data as "information available" for determining the cost of production of a major input a respondent bought from an affiliated non-market economy-based supplier.

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 27 ruled in favor of an importer on the Philippine origin of one of its models of power supplies and surge protectors, but found the importer didn’t prove a substantial transformation occurred for five others and upheld CBP’s finding of Chinese origin for those models.

Antidumping duty respondent Grupo Simec failed to prove that it would suffer immediate and irreparable harm without an injunction against AD cash deposits, the Court of International Trade held in a Feb. 24 opinion denying the preliminary injunction motion. Judge Stephen Vaden added that Grupo Simec's evidence purportedly showing how it would be harmed without the injunction contained conclusory evidence that, if held to be sufficient to establish harm, would "eviscerate the operation of the antidumping laws."

The Court of International Trade doesn't have jurisdiction to hear plaintiff-appellant Amsted Rail Co.'s attorney conflict of interest case because it should have instead been filed as a challenge to the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, and in any case ARC doesn't prove a conflict of interest existed from the participation of its former counsel in the investigations, the ITC and defendant-intervenor Coalition of Freight Rail Producers argued in a pair of reply briefs filed Feb. 22 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Amsted Rail Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

The use of an entire population of data instead of a sample "sufficiently negates" the questions raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the use of the Cohen's d test in the differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping, the Court of International Trade held in a Feb. 23 opinion rejecting antidumping duty respondent SeAH Steel Corp.'s bid for reconsideration.

The commerce secretary's report allowing President Donald Trump to take tariff action on steel and aluminum imports under Section 232 is not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act nor can it be reviewed for arbitrariness, the U.S. argued in a Feb. 20 reply brief at the U.S. Supreme Court. Even if it was up for review, the secretary did not misconstrue the statute since it does not require the report to make a finding on the imminent nature of any threat to national security, the government said (USP Holdings, et al. v. United States, U.S. Sup. Ct. # 22-565).

A horizontal lawnmower engine should be excluded from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc from China, given the plain language of the orders' scope excludes horizontal engines, exporter Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. argued in a Feb. 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00011).

The question of whether the Commerce Department has the statutory authority to conduct expedited reviews in countervailing duty investigations constitutes a "major question" that requires explicit delegation from Congress as established in the Supreme Court's West Virginia v. EPA decision, the Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations said in a supplemental brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 22 (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1021).

"Post hoc" arguments from the Commerce Department and BlueScope Steel that the Australian exporter's deduction of antidumping duties from a transfer price was not a reimbursement of antidumping duties are contradicted by documents that confirm a deduction of the duties from the price BlueScope Steel charged to an affiliated importer, plaintiff-appellant U.S. Steel Corp. argued in a Feb. 17 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (U.S. Steel Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2078).