The Commerce Department can legally deduct Section 232 duties from an exporter's U.S. price in antidumping proceedings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled March 15. Judges Richard Taranto, Kara Stoll and Tiffany Cunningham held that President Donald Trump's Proclamation 9705 imposing the duties made clear the tariffs were meant to be added to any applicable antidumping duties. The appellate court also clarified that this ruling applies only to Proclamation 9705 duties and not all presidential action taken under Section 232.

The Court of International Trade issued a pair of opinions on March 10. In one, brought by Printing Textiles, Judge Timothy Stanceu dismissed the customs action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The company filed the case under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, challenging CBP's denial of its protests on its Canvas Banner Matisse coated fabric. Printing Textiles said that the entries weren't subject to the antidumping order and that the Commerce Department had initiated a scope request on the company's imports. Stanceu said jurisdiction could have been available under Section 1581(a) or Section 1581(c) should Commerce find the imports to be in the scope of the order.

The Court of International Trade ruled March 13 that CBP properly classified as steel tubing, not insulating fittings, the carbon steel tubing lined with epoxy coating imported by Shamrock Building Materials. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the "uncontested facts show" that the subject merchandise is not, as Shamrock claimed, insulating material under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8547 per the meaning of that term as used in the heading's description.

The Court of International Trade in a March 10 upheld the Commerce Department's final scope decision that antidumping and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China cover a type of aluminum sheet AA Metals imported from Turkey. Judge Jane Restani ruled Commerce did not just rely on the plain language of the scope alone but considered various (k)(1) factors. AA Metals claimed it wasn't given a chance to remedy a deficiency on the record, leading the agency to include its imports under the orders. Restani said AA Metals' answers had no such deficiencies and Commerce has no obligation to vet corrections every time it makes a decision in conflict with a party's position.

The Court of International Trade in a March 1 opinion made public March 8 sent back parts of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on common alloy aluminum sheet from Turkey, ruling the Commerce Department did not properly explain its decision not to use an adverse inference for its treatment of respondent Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret's billing adjustments. Judge Gary Katzmann also remanded the case, per Commerce's request, over the agency's duty neutral method for calculating Assan's duty drawback adjustment. Katzmann upheld Assan's duty drawback adjustment itself, Commerce's denial of a home market rebate adjustment to Assan and the agency's reliance on Assan's affiliated freight costs.

The Court of International Trade in a March 3 order upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping case which slashed the dumping margin for respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipe Industries after the agency accepted the company's answers to the Section A questionnaire response originally rejected as untimely filed. The document was turned in late due to technical complications as a result of firm Barnes Richardson's switch to a work-from-home environment. The court remanded the issue since Commerce gave itself numerous extensions while rejecting the two-hour late submission.

The Court of International Trade on March 3 granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against the liquidation of unliquidated activated carbon entries from separate rate respondents Ningxia Guanghua Cherishmet Activated Carbon and Datong Municipal Yunguang Activated Carbon. Judge Mark Barnett said that he was unpersuaded by the government's claims that the PI motion illegally expands the issues in the case. Citing past CIT judgments, the judge held the enlargement concept is reserved only for cases where an intervenor adds new legal claims to those already before the court.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a March 2 opinion upheld a Court of International Trade ruling that found solar panel mounts made by appellant China Custom Manufacturing do not qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judges Pauline Newman, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham ruled that the matter is "governed squarely" by the Federal Circuit's ruling in Shenyang Yuanda Aluminum Indus. Eng'g Co. v. U.S., where the court said that a "part or subassembly ... cannot be a finished product." CCM had admitted that its mounts are parts of its solar panel mounting system.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 24 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping, ruling that the agency "adequately addressed" questions raised by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over the use of the test. The appellate court had held that use of the d test could be "problematic" when the distribution of a respondent's sales isn't normal, or in cases of few data points or minimal variance in the exporter's sales. Judge Claire Kelly held that Commerce sufficiently explained that the test adequately functions despite those concerns.

The Court of International Trade released a trio of opinions Feb. 27, covering customs, import misclassification penalty and antidumping cases.