Both the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission committed various errors in their antidumping duty investigations on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Argentina, Mexico, Russia and South Korea, plaintiffs Tenaris Bay City, Maverick Tube, Ipsco Tubulars and Siderca said in three related complaints, all filed Jan. 13 at the Court of International Trade.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 18 order upheld the Court of International Trade's ruling concerning an untimely filing in an antidumping duty sunset review that led to an AD order's revocation. The trade court said the Commerce Department did not abuse its discretion when enforcing the filing deadline. The appellate court affirmed without an opinion.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 18 order upheld the Court of International Trade's ruling in a case on the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Indonesia. At the trade court, Commerce reversed the outcome of the actual investigation, leading to a lack of countervailable subsidization and a rescinding of the order.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 17 order dismissed two customs cases seeking the retroactive application of Section 301 exclusions. Given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's finding in ARP Materials v. U.S., which said that an importer needs a protest with CBP to retroactively apply Section 301 exclusions (see 2209060035), the trade court dismissed the two cases -- from Poppin and Lighting Partners Jax. Both actions sought to establish jurisdiction at the court under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, as opposed to Section 1581(a) (Poppin v. United States, CIT # 20-00158) (Lighting Partners Jax v. United States, CIT # 20-03529).

Plaintiff Dongkuk S&C Co. will appeal a November 2022 Court of International Trade opinion upholding the Commerce Department's surrogate data selection and steel plate cost adjustments in an antidumping duty investigation. The exporter will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the notice of appeal said. The case deals with the AD investigation on utility scale wind towers from South Korea. In the opinion, the trade court upheld Commerce's finding that Dongkuk's reported steel plate costs do not reasonably reflect the cost of making wind towers (see 2211170084). The court further said that Commerce properly used exporter SeAH Steel Holdings Corp.'s 2018 consolidated financial statement as the basis for constructed value calculations for Dongkuk's profit and selling expenses (Dongkuk S&C Co. v. U.S., CIT # 20-03686).

The Commerce Department erred when it treated Section 232 steel and aluminum duties as ordinary customs duties and deducted them from antidumping duty respondent Borusan's export price and constructed export price, the respondent argued in a Jan. 17 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #23-00005).

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 13 order granted the Commerce Department's voluntary remand request in an antidumping duty case. Commerce wanted the remand period to review the non-selected respondents' rate in an AD review since the rate was based on the prior administrative review's rate, which was changed after separate litigation at the trade court (Danyang Weiwang Tools Manufacturing Co. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00006).

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The International Trade Commission used an incorrect interpretation of the word "likely" when finding that revoking the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia would likely lead to the recurrence of material injury to the domestic U.S. industry within a reasonably foreseeable time, Australian exporter BlueScope Steel argued. Filing a complaint at the Court of International Trade Jan. 13, BlueScope also said the ITC erred by cumulating Australian imports with other countries' imports in the injury review (BlueScope Steel v. United States, CIT # 22-00353).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in a Jan. 9 opinion upheld a district court ruling sentencing Chinese national Shuren Qin to two years in prison for violating federal export controls. Qin was found guilty of shipping hydrophones with anti-submarine applications to a Chinese military university on the Commerce Department's Entity List (see 2109090033). Judges David Barron, Jeffrey Howard and William Kayatta ruled the search of Qin's laptop and cellphone "constituted a border search that was supported by reasonable suspicion that Qin was engaged in the ongoing violation of export laws," and the defendant was properly convicted (United States v. Shuren Qin, 1st Cir. # 21-1832).