The Commerce Department released a final rule making extensive changes to its antidumping and countervailing duty regulations. Currently scheduled for publication Sept. 20, the final rule modifies Commerce’s regulations on scope proceedings, new shipper reviews and the treatment of business proprietary information in AD/CVD proceedings. It also creates new provisions on importer certifications, covered merchandise referrals and anti-circumvention inquiries, and establishes deadlines for industry support comments at the beginning of AD/CVD investigations. Some provisions of the final rule are set to take effect Oct. 20, while others would be effective Nov. 4.

The Court of International Trade sustained the final results of an antidumping review on steel nails from Taiwan in a Sept. 14 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett also denied respondent Romp Coil Nails Industries' motion for a preliminary injunction pending the results of a related appeal in a different case. Barnett said that the Commerce Department's decision to use home market sales as the basis for normal value is in line with the law, and sustained Commerce's use of mandatory respondent Unicatch Industrial Co.'s above-cost sales to compute the constructed value profit.

The Court of International Trade issued two similar opinions remanding the Commerce Department's decision for a second time to include Worldwide Door Components' and Columbia Aluminum Products' "door thresholds" within the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Finding that Commerce's remand in both cases relies on facts or inferences contradicted by other evidence and unsupported by any specific evidence, Judge Timothy Stanceu told the agency to go back to the drawing board on its scope rulings. Commerce must determine whether the finished merchandise exclusion applies to Worldwide and Columbia's door thresholds, the court said.

The Court of International Trade vacated the repository requirement imposed in its July 6 preliminary injunction (PI) order for importers to request suspending the liquidation of customs entries from China with Section 301 Lists 3 or 4A tariff exposure, said an order signed Sept. 8 by Judges Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves. The government will liquidate those entries “in the ordinary course” and refund the money with interest if the tariffs are declared unlawful, “should that decision become final and conclusive, including all appeals,” it said. The court also vacated the PI order’s temporary restraining order period when no entries could have liquidated, with or without the repository.

The Court of International Trade remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department's final results in the fifth administrative review on the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China in a Sept. 3 order. The court sustained Commerce's findings that the specificity finding for the aluminum extrusions for less than adequate remuneration program, the agency's chosen benchmark for the land for LTAR program and plaintiff Canadian Solar's lack of creditworthiness in 2016. Judge Jane Restani remanded Commerce's entered value adjustment, or lack thereof, for Canadian Solar's imports under review and determination that the mandatory respondents benefited from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a Court of International Trade ruling in a Sept. 2 order, finding it does not have jurisdiction to hear Chinese automobile parts exporter Wanxiang America Corporation's lawsuit. Claiming the trade court's residual Section 1581(i) jurisdiction, Wanxiang filed a due process claim against the Commerce Department's guidance to CBP instructing the customs agency to deny Wanxiang the company-specific antidumping duty rate for its tapered roller bearings entries and apply the country-wide rate. The appellate court found it would have had jurisdiction if there were a denied customs protest under Section 1581(a). CAFC also could have had Section 1581(c) jurisdiction if Wanxiang initiated a test shipment and sought an administrative review and remained unsuccessful in pursuing the company-specific rate, the court said.

The Court of International Trade remanded certain aspects of the results of a less-than-fair-value investigation into corrosion-resistant steel products from Taiwan to the Commerce Department concurrent with a mandate from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a Sept. 1 order. Having reversed two of CIT's findings in the case, the Federal Circuit mandate instructs Commerce to reconsider its decision to collapse the two mandatory respondents and an affiliate in the investigation and to use facts otherwise available with an adverse inference as to the reporting of yield strength by one of the respondents.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in an Aug. 31 opinion that the Commerce Department properly rejected cold-drawn mechanical tubing exporter Goodluck India's questionnaire corrections in an antidumping investigation. Reversing a Court of International Trade's decision, a three-judge panel said that Goodluck's corrections weren't "minor." The reversal led to a 33.8% dumping margin for Goodluck, which had been assigned a zero percent rate following the CIT decision.

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 27 granted the Commerce Department's request for voluntary remand in the 2017 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on certain hot-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. On remand, Commerce will reconsider its application of facts available to Hyundai Steel Company after the agency found that Hyundai received a benefit relating to "other" income from a program involving port usage rights at the Port of Incheon. Defendant-intervenor and petitioner Nucor Corp. was the only party to oppose the motion for voluntary remand.

The Court of International Trade remanded two Commerce Department scope rulings on an antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China in separate challenges. In one case, brought by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce misinterpreted evidence from the International Trade Commission on whether Crane's flanges are subject to the order. In the other case, brought by Star Pipe Products, Stanceu said that Commerce did not consider all the relevant evidence when finding that Star Pipe's flanges are covered by AD duties.