The Commerce Department's decision to rely on an antidumping duty respondent's actual costs of its non-prime products is backed by substantial evidence and in line with the law, the Court of International Trade said in its first decision of the new year. The trade court said this complies with a key U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling, Dillinger France S.A. v. U.S.

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Auto parts and tools exported to Canada for use at auto races then re-imported don't qualify for duty-free treatment under a U.S. goods returned tariff provision for "tools of the trade," said the Court of International Trade in a Dec. 30 opinion. Though Porsche Motorsport North America contended that the goods were exported to support race teams, CIT Judge Stephen Vaden found that the auto parts and tools were exported to generate sales to race teams rather than for a professional purpose, as required under subheading 9801.00.8500.

Importers found to have evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China argue for a greater due process rights in evasion investigations than Congress deemed fit to provide, the evasion alleger Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a Dec. 30 brief at the Court of International Trade supporting CBP's Enforce and Protect Act finding. Responding to a motion for judgment from the importers, led by American Pacific Plywood, the coalition said that the statute doesn't require the disclosure of confidential information during EAPA investigations (American Pacific Plywood, Inc. et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-03914).

The Commerce Department violated the law when it initiated an antidumping and countervailing duty investigation into quartz surface products from India since it didn't have the requisite industry support, importer M S International told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its Dec. 20 opening brief. Urging the appellate court to overturn a Court of International Trade decision that found that Commerce legally interpreted what constitutes a "producer" of QSPs, MSI argued that Commerce erred by excluding fabricators from the industry support calculation (Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1077).

The Commerce Department didn't follow the Court of International Trade's instructions when it continued to find the all-others rate in an antidumping duty investigation by averaging a respondent's zero percent margin and the high China-wide rate, the consolidated plaintiffs, led by Zhejiang Dehua TB Import & Export, argued in a Dec. 29 brief. The plaintiffs blasted Commerce's justification for the move -- that it had a limited record for calculating the separate rate respondents' actual rates -- since "this deficiency is of Commerce's own making" (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #18-00002).

Sufficient evidence exists to back the Commerce Department's contentions on a countervailing duty review of wood mouldings and millwork products from China, both the Department of Justice and CVD petitioner Coalition of American Millwork Producers said in a pair of reply briefs. The defendant and defendant-intervenor pushed the court to accept Commerce's arguments that it properly countervailed respondent Yinfeng's purchases of acrylic polymer and alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, along with its benchmarks for the provision of plywood and sawn wood for less than adequate remuneration and land-use rights for LTAR (Fujian Yinfeng Imp & Exp Trading Co. v. U.S., CIT #21-00088).

The Court of International Trade on Dec. 28 sustained a remand redetermination from the Commerce Department that reverses the outcome of Commerce's countervailing duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Indonesia, which had resulted in a CV duty order in 2020, but post-remand finds no countervailable subsidization.

The Court of International Trade erred when it said that there was no legal authority for expedited countervailing duty reviews, appellants told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in their opening brief. The appellants, led by the Canadian government, argued that the trade court improperly applied Chevron deference to the Commerce Department in finding that two different sections of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act didn't give Commerce the legal authority to carry out expedited reviews (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #19-00122).

Building a rail line in Canada to take advantage of an exception to the Jones Act is "ordinarily permissible" under the law, logistics company Lineage Logistics Holdings said in a proposed amicus brief at the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. The Supreme Court of the U.S. said that liability cannot be imposed just because an individual or entity set up a transaction to avoid liability. Due to this holding, even if two shipping companies set up a Canadian rail line to avoid Jones Act penalties, it cannot then be held liable under the Jones Act, the brief said (Kloosterboer International Forwarding LLC, et al. v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198).