The Commerce Department swapped the surrogate labor data it used to calculate normal value in an antidumping investigation after it reconsidered evidence showing signs of forced labor in Malaysia's electrical and electronics [E&E] sector, according to July 8 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. Finding that this forced labor unfairly skewed the labor costs for consideration as surrogate data, Commerce instead opted to use International Labor Comparisons data for Mexico in 2016 to determine the surrogate labor value (New American Keg v. United States, CIT #20-00008).

Global Aluminum Distributor backed Kingtom Aluminio's renewed bid to join a lawsuit over an Enforce and Protect Act investigation that found it helped importers evade antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China, while the original EAPA alleger, Ta Chen International, disputed Kingtom's motion for reconsideration in the case, in briefs filed July 7 (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC v. U.S., CIT #21-00198). Kingtom asks the Court of International Trade to reverse its own June 21 decision that Kingtom can't intervene in the case, brought by the importers found to have evaded AD/CV duties.

Garg Tube Export and Garg Tube Limited want their challenge to the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded carbon steel standard pipes and tubes from India in the Court of International Trade stayed pending their appeal in a related case over the existence of a particular market situation for hot-rolled coil in India. The Federal Circuit appeal will also address the Commerce Department's application of adverse facts available due to the plaintiffs' unaffiliated vendor's failure to submit costs of production data. Garg's July 6 motion to stay received the consent of the two defendant-intervenors, Nucor Tubular Products and Wheatland Tube, but will meet opposition from the Justice Department (Garg Tube Export LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00169).

The Commerce Department continues to find that the South Korean government did not provide a countervailable subsidy to producers of hot-rolled steel by way of cheap electricity despite a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion to the contrary, in July 6 remand results. Filing the second remand results of its kind in a second, separate Court of International Trade case brought by POSCO, Commerce held that POSCO's countervailing duty in an investigation into carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Korea will remain unchanged (POSCO v. United States, CIT #17-00137).

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration will be allowed to intervene in a Court of International Trade countervailing duty case on silicon metal from Kazakhstan, a July 6 order said. In Kazakhstan's initial attempt, Judge Leo Gordon had found the trade ministry failed to comply with court rules governing intervention, including failure to state the issues it wished to litigate. The ministry made the corrections in a “renewed motion to intervene as plaintiff-intervenor” but faced pushback from the petitioners in the CVD case, who argued that the renewed motion was untimely (see 2107060031). The Justice Department did not oppose the ministry's intervention.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's decision in the 15th antidumping administrative review of fish fillets from Vietnam that I.D.I. International Development and Investment Corp. failed to rebut the presumption of government control, in a July 6 order. The opinion in the case is confidential and will remain as such until Judge M. Miller Baker considers redactions for business confidential information with the litigants. Responses to the confidential opinion are due by July 20.

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

Changji Esquel Textile (CJE), a Hong Kong-based apparel company and part of the Esquel group of companies, filed a July 6 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to have its placement on the Commerce Department's Entity List dropped (Changji Esquel Textile Co. Ltd. et al. v. Gina M. Raimondo et al., D.C. Cir. #21-01798). The Trump administration put CJE on the list last year for alleged practices of using forced labor from the Muslim Uyghur minority population in China's Xinjiang region.

The Court of International Trade stayed a tariff classification case over printed circuit board assemblies used in audio-visual transmission equipment, in a July 6 order, pending the Justice Department's consideration of a settlement offer from importer Plexus Corp. CIT recently sent the case to trial after it found that it couldn't determine whether PCBAs imported by Plexus are principally used for televisions and dutiable at 2.9% or principally used for other devices, including computers and smartphones, and duty free (see 2012230084).

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration wanted to intervene in a countervailing duty case on silicon metal from Kazakhstan in the Court of International Trade in June. It was denied for failing to comply with CIT Rule 24 -- the rules governing intervention. In particular, the defendant-intervenors and petitioners in the underlying CVD case, Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon, said the trade ministry failed to state the issues it wanted to litigate (see 2106110029). Now, the ministry is back in CIT, filing a "renewed motion to intervene as plaintiff-intervenor" on June 16 (Tau-Ken Temir LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00173).