The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with the Court of International Trade's rejection of CBP regulations that limit the amount of drawback that can be claimed on excise taxes, the CAFC said in a ruling. "We conclude that the expansive definition in the Rule, which extends drawback to situations in which tax is never paid or determined, conflicts with the unambiguous text of the statute," said the CAFC.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty case over the question of whether to "collapse" affiliate entities since they were owned by members of the "same, albeit estranged, family." In an Aug. 20 opinion, Judge Gary Katzmann held that Commerce properly reversed its original determination that the three companies were affiliated, since they did not clear the three requirements for collapsing given entities. In doing so, Commerce dropped its application of adverse facts available and gave Echjay Forgings Private Limited a 4.58% dumping margin.

The Court of International Trade vacated a Commerce Department regulation establishing expedited reviews for countervailing duty investigations in an Aug. 18 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett, after issuing three other opinions in the case, upheld Commerce's finding that it couldn't find any alternative statutory basis on which to find that the regulation can exist. Barnett also nixed the expedited CVD reviews provided to some Canadian companies relating to the CVD order on certain softwood lumber from Canada. In doing so, Barnett ruled that companies deemed excluded from the CVD order due to the expedited reviews shall prospectively be reinstated as subject to it. Commerce shall also impose a cash deposit requirement based on the all-others rate from the investigation or the company-specific rate determined in the most recently completed administrative review in which the company was reviewed, Barnett said.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in a countervailing duty administrative review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey in an Aug. 18 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled against plaintiff Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi's motion for judgment, holding that Commerce permissibly rejected United Nations Comtrade and Eurostat data on natural gas imports from Russia in calculating a "tier-two benchmark" in its sales-below-cost analysis of Habas' natural gas prices. Katzmann also held that Commerce reasonably refused to use the Eurostat natural gas import data from Norway, Alberia, Libya and Ukraine in its "tier-three benchmark" calculations, while properly relying on IEA data for the tier-three calculations.

The Court of International Trade denied Otter Products' motion for leave to file a reply and to enforce judgment as part of a customs case in an Aug. 18 opinion. OtterBox sought refunds on a prior disclosure it made on imports of smartphone covers since it prevailed in another CIT case on entries of the same product. The court ruled against OtterBox in this instance, citing a lack of jurisdiction. “Because the entries associated with the Prior Disclosure were not part of the Subject Protest, they are not part of this action and the Court does not have jurisdiction to order the relief OtterBox requests,” the opinion said.

The Court of International Trade sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping investigation into carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany in two opinions. Judge Leo Gordon again remanded Commerce's application of the major input rule, treatment of certain general and administrative expenses and the application of adverse facts available. The judge did, however, sustain Commerce's differential pricing analysis and adjustment of interest expense to include a portion of respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's parent holding company's interest expense.

The Commerce Department properly calculated antidumping mandatory respondent LG Chem's cost of production when calculating constructed price, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 13 opinion. The case was over the antidumping duty investigation into acetone from South Korea. Judge M. Miller Baker held that Commerce's decision to spurn LG Chem's method for calculating the cost of the materials for making acetone in favor of the other mandatory respondent, Kumho P&B Chemical's, method was legal. This decision led to a higher antidumping rate for LG Chem in the investigation's final determination, sticking the exporter with a 25.05% rate.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in an antidumping review, finding that the agency properly relied on data from Xeneta XS rather than Maersk Line when calculating the respondent's surrogate ocean freight expenses in an Aug. 10 opinion. The case came from the fourth administrative review of the antidumping order on crystaline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules, from China. Twice before, Judge Claire Kelly raised concerns over Commerce's initial selection of Maersk for the surrogate freight expenses.

The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's second remand results in the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain steel nails from Taiwan in a July 30 decision released publicly Aug. 6. After issuing two prior opinions in the case, Chief Judge Mark Barnett considered Commerce's second remand results, ultimately sending them back so the agency can further explain or reconsider its use of a simple average of the mandatory respondents' rates to establish the AD duty rate for non-individually examined respondents. However, Barnett did sustain Commerce's use of transaction-specific margins to corroborate the petition rate.

The Court of International Trade sustained the final determination in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on chlorinated isocyanurates from China in an Aug. 5 opinion. Plaintiffs Heze Huayi Chemical Co. and Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. launched their challenge to contest the selection of Mexico over Malaysia as a surrogate nation for calculating the AD duty, to find that Mexico has the highest quality information and to adjust the Mexican "freight-on-board" values to a "cost of insurance and freight" mark. For all three contentions, Judge Timothy Reif sided with the government, finding that Mexico is a "significant producer" of "comparable merchandise," that its selection of the Mexican conglomerate CYDSA's financial statements was backed by substantial evidence and that the adjustment of the data to a CIF basis was permitted.