The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 17 opinion made public Feb. 24 upheld the Commerce Department's interpretation of the Major Inputs Rule to allow the use of third-country surrogate data as "information available" for finding the cost of production of a major input bought from an affiliated non-market economy-based supplier.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 24 opinion denied plaintiff Grupo Simec's bid for a preliminary injunction against cash deposits in an antidumping duty case covering rebar from Mexico. Judge Stephen Vaden said Grupo Simec failed to clear the "high standard" of proving it would suffer irreparable harm absent the injunction because the company failed to show the "immediacy" of the harm it would suffer should it continue to pay cash deposits.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 23 order denied antidumping respondent SeAH Steel's request for reconsideration of the court's opinion upholding the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis. SeAH said the case should be reconsidered given the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's opinion in Stupp v. U.S. calling into question the use of the test, which is used to root out "masked" dumping. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled the use of an entire population of data rather than just a sample "sufficiently negates" the questions raised in Stupp.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 16 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's final determination in the antidumping duty investigation into wind towers from Spain. In the investigation, Commerce picked only one mandatory respondent, hitting it with a 73% adverse facts available rate taken from the petitioner after the company backed out of the investigation. The agency used this rate for the non-individually selected respondents and the all-others rate. Judge Timothy Stanceu, criticizing the "limited and peculiar" situation the agency set up for itself, sent back Commerce's decision to pick only one respondent and use the AFA rate for the all-others margin.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 13 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's finding that exporter Cheng Shin Rubber Industry's tires do not qualify for an exclusion to the antidumping duty order on light truck spare tires, despite the petitioner originally agreeing to include specific exclusion language for Cheng Shin's tires. Judge Stephen Vaden said it is not his job "to save Cheng Shin from itself," given the negotiated exclusion required the tires must be "designed and marketed exclusively" as temporary-use light truck tires, and Cheng Shin submitted evidence showing its tires were not exclusively designed and marketed as such.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 10 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves remanded the case for Commerce to consider information relating to the prevailing market conditions, such as price, quality and other conditions of purchase or sale, when determining whether a benefit was conferred to respondent Hyundai Steel from the South Korea's government provision of port usage rights. Choe-Groves also granted Commerce's voluntary remand request over sewerage usage fees after it said it learned more about the program.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 9 opinion rejected Meyer Corp.'s bid for first sale treatment of its cookware imports, with Judge Thomas Aquilino denying the importer's request for a retrial. The judge held firm on a prior judgment in the case -- before it was appealed to the Federal Circuit -- which held that, because the court doesn't know the extent to which parent company Meyer Holdings had the ability to influence the price paid for the goods sold between affiliates, the use of first sale was not supported.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 9 opinion again called the Commerce Department's non-market economy policies into question, sending back the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the fifth administrative review of multilayered wood flooring from China. On remand, Commerce continued to find that AD respondent Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. failed to show that it was not controlled by the Chinese state. Judge Richard Eaton said that since Commerce has not shown its policy of assigning mandatory respondents the one non-market economy rate to have either statutory or regulatory backing, the agency must reconsider how it legally hit Jilin with the China-wide rate.

Then-President Donald Trump legally expanded the Section 232 national security tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivative" products, despite implementing the expansion beyond certain procedural deadlines laid out in the statute, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a Feb. 7 opinion. Relying on its 2021 opinion in Transpacific Steel v. U.S., in which the court said the president can adjust the tariffs beyond the time limits if it relates to the original plan of action laid out by the initial Section 232 tariff action, the Federal Circuit said the president can take action against derivatives despite the Commerce Department secretary not having individually investigated these articles. Judges Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen and Kara Stoll said the expansion to steel derivatives was within Section 232's authorization of presidential action.

The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 6 order denied defendant-intervenor Endura Products' motion for a stay of proceedings in an Enforce and Protect Act case brought by Columbia Aluminum pending Endura's impending appeal of a separate CIT decision over a scope ruling involving Columbia's imports. In that decision, the court upheld the exclusion of the plaintiff's door thresholds from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the stay motion failed to show it would serve the twin objectives of "fairness to the litigants and judicial economy."