The Court of International Trade should have allowed a company that filed an attorney conflict-of-interest suit involving an International Trade Commission AD/CVD injury proceeding to amend its allegations to comply with the court's opinion, rather than dismissing the case outright with leave to file under a different jurisdictional provision, said the company, Amstead Rail Co., in an opening brief filed Jan. 13 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Amsted Rail Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 16 paperless order denied a U.S. motion to exclude live testimony from plaintiff Oman Fasteners' CEO, Seve Karaga, in an antidumping duty case. The court said that Oman Fasteners can call Karaga to testify at the Jan. 23 hearing over the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction, though the testimony "shall be confined to the facts set forth in his declaration attached to Plaintiffs motion" (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT # 22-00348).

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The Commerce Department illegally found that Vandewater International's steel branch outlets are within the scope of an antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings, plaintiff-appellants Smith-Cooper International and Sigma Corp. argued in two Jan. 9 opening briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Both companies said that the term "butt-weld" has an unambiguous meaning according to the scope language and that the outlets at issue clearly do not fit within that definition. Smith-Cooper went on to argue that even if ambiguity is read into this term, the (k)(1) factors do not support including the outlets under the order (Vandewater International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1093, -1141).

The Commerce Department properly used adverse facts available for antidumping duty respondent Sino-Maple, but the agency did not properly derive the AFA rate, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Dec. 22 opinion made public Jan. 13. Judge Richard Eaton said that Commerce properly used AFA due to Sino-Maple's failure to provide constructed export price information on a per transaction basis for U.S. sales made to its U.S. affiliate by third-country manufacturers. The judge, however, sent back the AFA rate itself, finding that the agency cannot use the highest transaction-specific margin for the other respondent when setting the AFA rate. Eaton also upheld Commerce's decisions to reject separate rate applications from Scholar Home and Baishan Huafeng.

The Commerce Department properly found that two out of three types of glass surface products made by SMA Surfaces, formerly known as Polarstone US, are included within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China, the Court of International Trade found in a Dec. 12 opinion. However, Commerce did not support its finding that the remaining type fits under the orders, Judge Gary Katzmann ruled while remanding the case.

Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during Jan. 12 oral arguments expressed skepticism over claims from antidumping respondent Zhejiang Machinery Import & Export Corp. (ZMC) in its bid to rebut the presumption of government control and win a separate rate in an antidumping duty review. Judges Sharon Prost, Jimmy Reyna and Todd Hughes questioned whether ZMC's ownership structure could ever be truly free of government control, calling it "implausible." At another point in the arguments, DOJ attorney Kelly Krystyniak said that given the combination of China's corporate laws and ZMC's ownership, it may be impossible to rebut the presumption of government control and that ZMC has no inherent right to be able to rebut it (Zhejiang Machinery Import & Export v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2257).

Exporter Oman Fasteners has failed to show that paying cash deposits for antidumping duties will cause it immediate and irreparable harm, the U.S. argued in a Jan. 11 brief opposing the exporter's bid for a preliminary injunction against the payment of the cash deposits. The government said that Oman Fastener's bid to suspend collection of the cash deposits "asks for relief far beyond" the usual procedures "such that the United States would have almost no security to cover future duty liability." The exporter also has not shown that it will likely succeed on the merits of the case, the government said (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT # 22-00348).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard claims over whether Krakatu POSCO -- a joint venture between a private South Korean steel company and an Indonesian government-owned firm -- was an authority or directed by an authority for the purposes of a countervailing duty investigation. During oral arguments Jan. 11 before Judges Alan Lourie, Timothy Dyk and Kara Stoll, counsel for CVD petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition, Kenertec Power System and the U.S. also argued over whether Indonesia's Rediscount Loan Program was an upstream subsidy and thus countervailable (Kenertec Power System v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 20-03687).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, during Jan. 10 oral arguments, heard disputes over whether the court should follow the Court of International Trade in setting aside Section 232 national security tariffs on derivative products made of steel and aluminum. Seeking to differentiate the appeal from the Federal Circuit's decision in Transpacific Steel v. U.S., in which the court said the president can take certain Section 232 action beyond procedural deadlines, counsel for plaintiff-appellants PrimeSource Building Products, Oman Fasteners and Huttig Building Products said the matter is different for derivative goods, while the government said Transpacific has settled the matter (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S. , Fed. Cir. # 21-2066).