The Commerce Department fully addressed the Court of International Trade's questions about why the agency needs certain information from the Chinese government in order to verify that certain exporters' U.S. customers did not use the Export Buyer's Credit Program, a countervailing duty petitioner argued in May 19 comments supporting Commerce's remand. The petitioner, United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers Union, AFL-CIO, said that the "only reasonable way" for Commerce to pursue verification of non-use of the EBCP is through this requested information, so the Chinese government not providing it stands as reasonable grounds for the use of adverse facts available (Cooper (Kunshan) Tire Co. v. United States, CIT #20-00113).

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security continued to deny 15 Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests from NLMK Pennsylvania in remand results at the Court of International Trade on May 18. BIS said that the U.S. industry has sufficient capacity to make the products that NLMK requested the exclusions for at a "satisfactory quality" (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT #21-00507).

CBP improperly denied an importer's "mixed use" drawback claim, despite provisions in CBP's regulations allowing claims based on imports used for both pre- and post-Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA) drawback, an importer told the Court of International Trade in a complaint filed May 16 (Parkdale America LLC v. United States, CIT #22-00019).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Judge Gary Katzmann of the Court of International Trade approved a May 14 motion by TR International Trading Company to make its ongoing case a test case and suspend two similar cases under the proceeding (Thatcher Company v. United States, CIT No. 20-00067, 21-cv-00357).

The Canadian Government, along with its other plaintiffs in a countervailing duty case, will appeal a March Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's positions on all five issues under contention in a dispute involving wind towers from Canada. According to the May 16 notice of appeal, the Canadian Government, along with the Government of Quebec, Marmen Inc., Marmen Energie and Marmen Energy Co., will take their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (The Government of Quebec v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-00168).

South Korean exporter Husteel Co. challenged the Commerce Department's decision to use one antidumping duty mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit. Filing its complaint on May 16 at the Court of International Trade, Husteel, a non-examined company in the relevant AD review, also argued that Commerce violated the law in its application of neutral facts available over the calculation of one of the respondent's U.S. affiliate's yield loss on further manufacturing operations (Husteel Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #22-00143).

The Court of International Trade in a May 17 order granted a stay requested by the plaintiffs in an antidumping duty scope dispute, led by Chinese exporter Zhejiang Yuhua Timber Co. but contested by the U.S. As such, consideration of the U.S.'s motion to dimsiss and all other proceedings will be stayed until 21 days after the Commerce Department issues its final decision in the changed circumstances review over the AD investigation on multilayered wood flooring from China, the court said (Zhejiang Yuhua Timber Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00502).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Australian steel exporter BlueScope Steel, along with its affiliates Australian Iron & Steel and BlueScope Steel Americas, voiced their support for the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty case at the Court of International Trade. Filing comments at CIT on May 16, BlueScope backed Commerce's position which slashed the antidumping duties for BlueScope from 99.20% to 4.95% after dropping its reliance on adverse facts available based on BlueScope's U.S. sales quantity and value reporting data (BlueScope Steel Ltd. v. United States, CIT #19-00057).