The Commerce Department admitted that it was "improper" to inflate a Mexican labor wage rate using Brazilian consumer price index (CPI) data in an antidumping duty investigation. Submitting its remand results on Nov. 14 to the Court of International Trade, Commerce said it reopened the record and added Mexican wage rate data. The agency also found on remand that exporter Guangzhou Ulix Industrial & Trading Co. met the burden for achieving separate rate status. The result of the remand is a zero percent dumping margin for respondents Ningbo Master International Trade Co., Guangzhou Jingye Machinery Co. and now Ulix (New American Keg v. United States, CIT #20-00008).
The Commerce Department stuck by its use of a simple average in the denominatory calculation of the Cohen's d coefficient -- a part of the test to root out "masked" dumping -- in Nov. 10 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. Responding to an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit telling the agency to justify its departure from the academic literature about how to calculate the Cohen's d denominator, Commerce said that the literature actually supports the use of a simple average when sampling is not used (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, CIT Consol. #15-00213).
The American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance in a Nov. 7 statement expressed its disappointment with the Commerce Department's final results in the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, covering entries in 2019-2021. The group is weighing legal action over the review, Politico reported. In the review, Commerce found a zero percent antidumping margin for 16 companies (see 2211090008).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade does not have jurisdiction under 19 U.S.C. Section 1581(i) -- the court's "residual" jurisdiction -- to hear a case over whether former counsel for Amsted Rail Co. should be barred from certain antidumping and countervailing proceedings, the U.S. told the court. Concurrently filing an opposition to ARC's motion for a preliminary injunction, which would bar ARC's former counsel, Daniel Pickard and law firm Buchanan Ingersoll, from participating in the proceedings, and a motion to dismiss, the U.S. said that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case and that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in the matter (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00316).
Plaintiffs in a conflict-of-interest suit at the Court of International Trade invoked three court decisions -- two from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and one from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit -- in a Nov. 9 notice of supplemental authority. The plaintiffs, led by Amsted Rail Co., said the cases were discussed during the hearing on the issue held at the trade court (Amsted Rail v. ITC , CIT #22-00307).
The Court of International Trade properly classified knit gloves under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 6116, the U.S. argued in a Nov. 7 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The heading provides for "[g]loves, mittens and mitts, knitted or crocheted" and is "sufficiently broad" to include knit gloves. The plaintiff-appellant, Magid Glove, puts forth a host of "inconsistent and unpersuasive arguments" to vie for classification under HTS heading 3926, which provides for "[o]ther articles of plastics," the brief said (Magid Glove & Safety Manufacturing Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1793).
Antidumping petitioner Ellwood City Co. failed to preserve its objection to the Commerce Department's use of a questionnaire in light of on-site verification by not exhausting administrative remedies, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Nov. 8 opinion. Judge Stephen Vaden said Ellwood City had many chances to object to the verification methodology in the AD investigation, but it never did. However, the case was remanded to Commerce over defendant-intervenor and AD respondent BGH Edelstahl Siegen's challenge to Commerce's use of a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch in a Nov. 7 dissenting opinion railed against the court system's use of Chevron deference in a case over veterans' disability benefits. Breaking from his colleagues' decision on the petition for writ of certiori, Gorsuch decried the use of Chevron deference as the "kind of judicial abdication" that "disserves both our veterans and the law."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: