The Commerce Department properly hit Greek exporter Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry with a 41.04% total adverse facts available antidumping duty rate, given that its reported costs were not reconciled to its normal books and records, the Court of International Trade ruled. Judge Leo Gordon said the law does not require Commerce to respond to Corinth's arguments on its use of total AFA, which the agency employed in the first instance amid the final results of the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large diameter welded pipe from Greece.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 1 upheld the Commerce Department's valuation of an activated carbon input using data from a country different from the primary surrogate country. Judges Todd Hughes, Kara Stoll and Leonard Stark said that just because Commerce departed from what it typically does in preferring to take all the data from the primary surrogate country, this "does not mean that what it did do is unsupported by substantial evidence."

The Commerce Department properly used financial statements from Indian company Sundram as the source of surrogate financial data in the antidumping duty investigation on steel nails from Oman, despite evidence the company received countervailable subsidies, the U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After Commerce winnowed potential surrogate companies from 11, the two remaining companies -- Hi-Tech Fastener Manufacturer and Sundram -- received subsidies. Since Sundram's data was contemporaneous with the investigation period and Hi-Tech's was not, Commerce legally went with Sundram, the government said in its reply brief (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1039).

CBP did not adequately justify treating the same evidence differently when it reversed a recent finding on aluminum extrusions from China, the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee told the Court of International Trade. In CBP's remand decision that reversed its finding that six companies evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on the extrusions, the industry organization said CBP used most, if not all, the same evidence "without providing a rational explanation" (H&E Home Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00337).

The Enforce and Protect Act case involving Aspects Furniture International is not one of a lack of cooperation, "but instead one of 'too much' cooperation for CBP to handle, so much so that CBP chose to abuse its discretion" in ignoring the record completely, Aspects told the Court of International Trade. Submitting opposing comments on CBP's remand results, the bedroom furniture importer said CBP made "general, conclusory" explanations of its evasion decision based on the fact that it saw employees of Aspects' Chinese satellite office, Aspects Nantong, destroying information (Aspects Furniture International v. United States, CIT # 20-03824).

CBP's Office of Regulations and Rulings abused its discretion when it overturned a determination of evasion in an administrative review, the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee (AEFTC) said in an April 26 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. The original determination found that Kingtom Aluminio SRL had evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China by transshipment through the Dominican Republic. The AEFTC asked the court to remand the case to CBP (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. U.S., CIT # 22-00236).

The Commerce Department did not adequately explain its finding that ship building company Nur Gemicilik ve Tic, an affiliate of countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret, was a cross-owned input supplier of primarily dedicated inputs, the Court of International Trade ruled. Sending back the 2018 administrative review of the CVD order on rebar from Turkey, Judge Gary Katzmann said Commerce erroneously relied on prior segments of the review and a past CIT decision to say that "scrap" is an input primarily dedicated to the production of downstream steel products.

Steel importers led by PrimeSource Building Products petitioned for an en banc rehearing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision to uphold President Donald Trump's expansion of the Section 232 national security tariffs on steel and aluminum "derivative" products. The companies said that if the decision stands, the president "will enjoy unbounded legislative power to regulate foreign trade -- to take any action, at any time, targeting any imported product," as long as the commerce secretary makes a threat determination on the targeted product or any material used to make that product (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2066).

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld CBP's decision not to grant credit to customs broker license exam test taker Byungmin Chae of Elkhorn, Nebraska, for two questions on the April 2018 exam. Judges Pauline Newman, Sharon Prost and Todd Hughes granted Chae credit for one of three questions he challenged, but that was insufficient to bring him up to the 75% threshold needed to pass the test.