Advanced Extrusion, Ex-Tech Plastics and Multi-Plastics Extrusions, defendant-intervenors in an antidumping case, opposed plaintiff OCTAL's motion to expand the word limit and ability to submit reply comments to the Commerce Department's remand results. The intervenors said in an Aug. 24 brief that OCTAL's comment schedule would “improperly extinguish” their opportunity to comment on the remand results, which could prejudice their rights on appeal (OCTAL, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).

The Commerce Department did not violate the law when it included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited in an antidumping investigation, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 25 order. Judge Leo Gordon said that there is nothing in the statute that requires Commerce to perform a bona fide sales analysis on paid U.S. sample sales during an antidumping investigation.

The Department of Justice, in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade initially filed by Fine Furniture (Shanghai), requested CIT sustain the Commerce Department's remand results, in Aug. 24 comments. The case stems from an antidumping duty administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Following multiple court decisions and remand results (see 2107130080), Fine Furniture's case was stayed pending a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which eventually found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping duty order. Since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD duty order received de minimis rates in Commerce's final determination, Fine Furniture was removed from the review. This led to the AD duty rate for all separate rate respondents falling to zero percent (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #14-00135). Most recently, the plaintiffs all signed off on the remand results, leaving no party to challenge the redetermination and nothing further to resolve in the litigation (see 2108110023).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department properly used the expected method in an antidumping duty administrative review when it averaged two adverse facts available rates to apply to the non-individually examined respondents, the Department of Justice argued in an Aug. 16 filing at the Court of International Trade. Due to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, Albemarle Corp. & Subsidiaries v. United States, which held that the antidumping duty rate for mandatory respondents should be found to be representative unless enough evidence shows otherwise, Commerce properly used the expected method to find the non-individually examined respondents' rate, it said (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).

Plaintiff Nucor Corporation mischaracterized, oversimplified and took the Commerce Department's remand results out of context in its comments on a submission in a case stemming from the agency's countervailing duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from South Korea, the Department of Justice said in Aug. 18 comments at the Court of International Trade, backing the remand redetermination. DOJ continued to back Commerce's contention that the South Korean government did not provide a countervailable subsidy to producers of hot-rolled steel through cheap electricity. Contrary to what Nucor's comments assert, Commerce adhered to the statute when completing its less-than-adequate remuneration analysis in the CVD case and properly accounted for the Korean Power Exchange's role in the electricity market, DOJ said (POSCO, et al. v. U.S., CIT #16-00227).

CBP deprived Norca Industrial Company of its due process rights and engaged in "unlawful speculation" when finding that Norca evaded antidumping duties, the company said in its motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Another in a long line of importers to challenge the constitutionality of the Enforce and Protect Act process, Norca argued that CBP failed to grant it proper access to the record evidence during the investigation and based its determination on allegations of document discrepancies that the agency never gave the importer a chance to explain (Norca Industrial Company, LLC et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00192).

Apple and Intel were the two heavy hitters joining the Section 301 litigation Aug. 20, when two dozen complaints in total were filed at the Court of International Trade seeking to vacate the lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese goods and get the duties refunded. It was the highest volume of complaints filed on a single day since early in the litigation that will be a year old Sept. 10. Aug. 20 marked two years after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative published its Federal Register notice imposing List 4A tariffs (see 2108190063). Court rules require plaintiffs to begin an action within two years “after the cause of action first accrues.” Intel “timely filed this action with respect to any entry of merchandise on which List 4A duties have been assessed, and any entry of merchandise on which List 3 duties were not definitively assessed before August 20, 2019,” the chipmaker’s complaint said, using language typical in the others filed the same day. Importers will likely argue alternatively in complaints yet to come that their two-year clocks started when List 4A took effect Sept. 1, 2019, or when they paid their first tariffs or their customs entries reached liquidation.

Russian steel importer NLMK's lawsuit against U.S. Steel alleging the Pittsburgh-based company misled the Commerce Department when it objected to NLMK's Section 232 exclusion requests will stay in Pennsylvania federal court, per an Aug. 19 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Judge William Stickman IV denied NLMK's motion to keep the case in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, where it was originally filed, finding that the case raises federal issues including recreating Commerce's thought process in examining the exclusion requests (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC, et al. v. United States Steel Corporation, W.D. Pa. #21-00273).

The U.S. partially opposed Ashley Furniture Industries' motion for an open-ended statutory injunction against the liquidation of its mattress imports, saying that the injunction should only run to the end of the first antidumping administrative review period. Making its case in the Court of International Trade, the U.S. said that Ashley failed to show that it will suffer immediate and irreparable harm for its mattress entries made after April 30, 2022 -- the date that "corresponds to the end of the period of review for the first administrative review" (Ashley Furniture Industries, LLC, et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00283).