The Commerce Department misapplied the four factors used in determining whether companies are de facto controlled by a foreign government in finding exporter Guizhou Tyre was controlled by the Chinese state in the antidumping duty investigation on truck and bus tires from China, the exporter argued. Filing its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Guizhou Tyre said that Commerce improperly used its government control analysis for firms majority owned by a state-owned enterprise in finding it failed to rebut the presumption of state control, since the exporter is only minority owned by an SOE (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2165).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Dec. 4 again ruled against Commerce's use of a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test in antidumping duty cases.

The Court of International Trade's recent decision that it has subject matter jurisdiction in a challenge to an addition to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List "directly addresses" a jurisdictional issue raised by the trade court in a separate action, importer Southern Cross said in a Dec. 1 notice of supplemental authority. CIT's ruling in Ninestar Corp. v. U.S. shows that the court has jurisdiction to hear the importer's case on the National Marine Fisheries Service's rejection of importer Southern Cross Seafoods' application for preapproval to import Chilean sea bass, the brief said (Southern Cross Seafoods v. United States, CIT # 22-00299).

The Commerce Department relied on incomplete data when it used a Tier 3 benchmark calculation methodology in the 2020-21 review of the countervailing duty order on phosphate fertilizers from Russia, U.S. importer Archer Daniels Midland Co. argued in a Dec. 1 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Archer Daniels Midland Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00239).

Solar cell exporter Risen Energy Co. may not amend its complaint to add a claim against the countervailability of China's Article 26(2) tax program in a suit challenging the 2020 countervailing duty review on solar cells from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Nov. 30 opinion. Judge Jane Restani said that because the issue was not raised administratively at any point, Risen now could not bring the claim before the court. Waiving the exhaustion requirement is "inappropriate" because the exporter does not raise a "pure question of law" but one that requires additions to the record, Restani said.

Chinese exporter Ninestar Corp. is likely to show that the Court of International Trade has jurisdiction over the company's challenge to its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, the trade court ruled in a Nov. 30 opinion.

The Commerce Department ignored its own framework for "linking evidentiary findings to conduct" relevant to antidumping proceedings and perverted the "rebuttable" presumption of state control," exporters Double Coin Holdings and China Manufacturers Alliance argued in their opening brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 28. The pair challenged Commerce's finding that Double Coin didn't rebut the presumption of Chinese state control in a review on off-the-road tires from China, saddling the firm with the 105.31% China-wide rate (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).

The Commerce Department went too far when it rejected all of Vietnamese exporter Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co.'s submitted factual information in three anti-circumvention inquiries on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from China, Taiwan and South Korea, Hoa Phat said in a trio of complaints at the Court of International Trade. The exporter said that while Commerce has some discretion in how it conducts AD proceedings, "there is substantial court precedent that Commerce cannot abuse this discretion" (Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co. v. United States, CIT #s 23-00248, -00249, -00250).

The Court of International Trade should not grant improper Diamond Tools Technology's application for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act since the government's position in an Enforce and Protect Act investigation was "substantially justified" and the case presented a "matter of first impression and a novel issue," the U.S. argued in a Nov. 27 reply brief (Diamond Tools Technology v. United States, CIT # 20-00060).

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