The Commerce Department legally found that Chinese respondents in an antidumping investigation and review failed to rebut the presumption of de facto government control, the Court of International Trade ruled in a pair of opinions. In a suit contesting the 2015-16 review of the AD order on off-the-road tires from China, Judge Timothy Stanceu said Guizhou Tyre did not rebut the presumption of Chinese state control of the company's export functions, failing its bid for a separate rate. In a case on the AD investigation on truck and bus tires from China, Stanceu ruled that Guizhou Tyre and Double Coin both failed to rebut the presumption of government control of their export functions.

The Court of International Trade sent back parts and upheld parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the seventh administrative review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Judge Richard Eaton remanded Commerce's surrogate financial ratio calculation for manufacturing overhead and the agency's surrogate value for labor while upholding the surrogate value determination for glue. The judge ruled Commerce engaged in mere speculation by finding that using the indirect production expenses data from a Romanian company's financial statement could be distortive in the overhead calculation. Eaton also found that there was "no source at all" for Commerce's use of 24 working days per month as part of its surrogate labor value calculation.

A company unable to prove it has any entries for the purposes of obtaining a separate rate should not automatically be found to have no shipments and be rescinded from the review, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a May 19 opinion. Though the appellate court found the government's claim that it is not required to rescind a review for a company with no entries unconvincing, Judges Timothy Dyk, Richard Linn and Raymond Chen said that Ninhbo Qixin did not clear the bar for establishing no shipments, even though Commerce had rejected a separate rate for the company because it couldn't verify any entries.

The Court of International Trade on May 18 upheld the Commerce Department's denial of separate rate status to Chinese exporters Guizhou Tyre Import and Export (GTC) and Aeolus Tyre and the agency's assignment of the "China-wide" AD rate of 105.31% in an antidumping review on off-road tires from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu ruled that Commerce's methodology "exists apart from the provisions in the Tariff Act and regulations," and there was no statutory language, legislative history or regulatory language to lead the court to conclude that Commerce's methodology was unreasonable. The court also recognized Commerce's discretion to "draw reasonable inferences" from evidence on the record, the judge said.

The Commerce Department legally found that exporter Double Coin Holdings failed to rebut the presumption of government control when it levied a 105.31% China-wide rate in the fifth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on off-the-road tires from China, the Court of International Trade ruled. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that absent a statute or regulation governing the presumption of government control in AD cases, "the court lacks a basis to conclude that Commerce acted contrary to law in exercising its broad discretion" by centering its analysis on how Double Coin's government-owned majority shareholder influences the selection and supervision of management.

The Court of International Trade ruled that Turkish exporter Erdemir failed to show the court should revisit its past order allowing four U.S. steel companies to intervene in a case on the International Trade Commission's injury determination on imports of hot-rolled steel from Turkey. Judge Timothy Reif said the four companies make arguments that share a common question of law or fact with the case's main action, would be adversely affected if the court were to rule in Erdemir's favor and would not unduly delay the adjudication of the original parties' rights. However, Reif continued to deny U.S. Steel Corp.'s right to intervene, finding the company did not explain how it would be adversely affected by the decision.

The Court of International Trade determined May 9 that Commerce Department reasonably found it does not need to incorporate offsets for the costs of complying with Germany's Electricity and Energy Tax Acts into countervailing duty rate calculations for respondent BGH Edelstahl Siegen. Ruling on Commerce's remand results in a case on the CVD investigation into forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany, Judge Claire Kelly also remanded the agency's finding of de jure specificity for Germany's KAV program. The judge said Commerce failed to explain how the criteria for the program are economic in nature and horizontal in application.

The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2018 countervailing duty review on utility scale wind towers from Vietnam. The court previously sent back the case so that Commerce could consider evidence relating to respondent CS Wind Vietnam's potential manipulation of its CVD margin. Judge Timothy Reif said the agency provided a reasonable explanation of its findings that CS Wind Vietnam was not manipulating the denominator in its subsidy calculation and that the steel plate in question was sourced from Vietnam.

The Court of International Trade upheld CBP's remand results finding that MSeafood Corp. did not evade antidumping duties on frozen warmwater shrimp from India by transshipping its products through Vietnam. Judge Claire Kelly said she found CBP's Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate's affirmative evasion finding unsupported but sustained the CBP's Office of Regulations and Ruling's negative evasion finding. The judge added that, while she found CBP's explanation of its treatment of confidential information "inadequate," the deficiency is "harmless given the judicial protective order issued in the case."

The Court of International Trade on May 2 upheld a CBP Enforce and Protect Act investigation determination that found CEK Group had evaded an antidumping duty order on steel wire garment hangers from China. Judge Jane Restani noted that the standard for initiation of an EAPA investigation is low and that the "voluminous evidence" provided in M&B’s allegation met both the government’s and CEK’s proposed standards of "reasonable suggestion." It's also "undisputed" that during the investigation CEK and Thai exporter and manufacturer NWH failed to respond to CBP's information requests, justifying the use of adverse inferences, said Restani.