The Court of International Trade on Oct. 20 granted Canadian exporter Midwest-CBK's motion to dismiss its case on whether its sales from a Canadian warehouse to U.S. customers are "sales for export to the U.S." or "domestic sales." Following a prior CIT ruling finding that the company's sales are for export to the U.S., the case shifted to a question of how to value the goods. Midwest-CBK said that obtaining evidence on this question is impossible given its business model, moving to dismiss the case to pursue its original argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 12 opinion made public Oct. 20 remanded parts and sustained parts of the International Trade Commission's injury determination on imports of seamless pipe from South Korea, Russia and Ukraine. Judge M. Miller Baker sent back the ITC's failure to give Russian exporter PAO TMK a chance to argue against its sole reliance on questionnaire data from one unnamed company as to German imports and data from another unnamed company as to Mexican imports. Baker also remanded the ITC's acceptance of "Company A's questionnaire" while rejecting "Company C's." The court sustained the commission's estimate of seamless pipe imports from Ukraine and refusal to determine what imports correspond to domestic like products.

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 20 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's 2020 review of the countervailing duty order on truck and bus tires from China. Judge Mark Barnett said Commerce properly levied Qingdao Ge Rui Da Rubber Co. with an adverse facts available rate over its alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program. The court said that the exporter failed to raise a host of challenges to the use of AFA administratively, barring relief on its claims at CIT.

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 18 opinion remanded the Commerce Department's decision to deny importer Seneca Foods Corp.'s eight requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties on its tin mill product imports. Judge Gary Katzmann granted Commerce's voluntary remand request for reconsideration of two of the denials, while also remanding the remaining six exclusion request denials after finding the agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying the requests. Commerce did not adequately address contradictory evidence, the judge said, noting the decisions raise questions about Commerce's entire administrative process.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 11 remanded the antidumping duty investigation on wind towers from Spain for the second time. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that after individually investigating exporter Siemens Gamesa on the first remand, Commerce illegally levied a 73% adverse facts available rate on the company after collapsing it with affiliated supplier Windar Renovables and five of Windar's subsidiaries. Commerce unlawfully relied on the conclusion that the 73% AFA rate on Windar set in the original AD investigation was final and controlling and improperly used AFA on Siemens Gamesa given the record evidence, Stanceu said.

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 11 opinion partially sustained and partially remanded the Commerce Department's eighth review of the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China. Judge Jane Restani granted the U.S. request for a remand regarding China's Export Buyer's Credit Program and the datasets used to set a benchmark for ocean freight. The court also sent back Commerce's use of a 2010 Thai Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis report in setting the land value benchmark and its de jure specificity finding regarding benefits received from a program that makes income from investment gains derived by a resident enterprise via direct investment in another resident enterprise tax exempt. Restani upheld Commerce's 2017 benefit finding regarding land leases, which was left to coexist in the present review period.

The Court of International Trade in part granted importer Southern Cross Seafoods' motion to supplement the administrative record in a case on the National Marine Fisheries Service's rejection of the company's application for preapproval to import Chilean sea bass. Judge Timothy Reif said the U.S. needs to explain its position regarding Southern Cross' motion requesting information showing how the NMFS obtained outside legal opinions included in the administrative record and information identifying who authored one of the legal opinions titled. Reif also rejected Southern Cross' motion seeking five other categories of documents, finding either that the U.S. offered the requested documents or that the U.S. did not leave them off in bad faith.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's zero percent rate for non-individually examined companies in the fifth remand redetermination of the antidumping duty investigation of hardwood plywood products from China. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves in an Oct. 10 opinion sustained Commerce's separate rate along with its decisions to exclude Dehua TB and Jiangyang Wood from, and to include Sanfortune Wood and Longyuan Wood within, the order. Commerce ultimately decided on the zero rate under protest after Choe-Groves disallowed the use of a 57.36% rate, calculated using only de minimus and AFA rates (see 2303170047).

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 4 opinion vacated part of its prior decision in an antidumping case remanding the Commerce Department's methodology for calculating an adverse facts available rate for mandatory respondent Sino-Maple (JiangSu) Co. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce can use the highest transaction-specific dumping margin for the other mandatory respondent in the review, Senmao, as the total AFA rate for Sino-Maple after initially rejecting the move. The opinion comes as part of the sixth AD review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Commerce did not submit a remand redetermination following Eaton's original decision but instead vied for reconsideration of the opinion.

The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 29 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's 2019 review of the countervailing duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. Judge Mark Barnett said that Commerce must consider its legal basis for finding that South Korea's emissions trading program is countervailable. While the agency said the South Korean government forewent revenue it was otherwise due by fully allocating emissions permits, Barnett noted a standard allocation of the permits may lead to extra government revenue but will not certainly lead to it. The judge added that Commerce failed to support its position that the program is sufficiently limited to an industry.