Domestic producers U.S. Steel Corporation and Nucor Corporation challenged the International Trade Administration’s methods in the final results of the August 2006 -- July 2007 antidumping duty administrative review of corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products from Korea. The domestic producers faulted the ITA for failing to adjust Union Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd. of Korea’s costs to account for steel substrate purchases from affiliated suppliers, and for not collapsing or grouping Pohang Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. and Pohang Coated Steel Co., Ltd. (collectively, POSCO) together with Union as a single entity in the AD calculations. The CIT granted the ITA’s voluntary remand request to review its decision not to include an adjustment for the value of steel substrates supplied by affiliates, and ordered the agency to review its decision not to collapse Union and POSCO and treat them as a single entity. (Slip-Op. 11-19, dated 02/15/11)

A Turkish pasta producer, Marsan Gida Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., under new ownership, Gidasa Sabanci Gida Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., sought to preserve the company’s prior countervailing duty rate for its goods from Turkey, but the International Trade Administration, using a new CVD changed circumstances methodology it had previously been considering, found that the successor company was no longer the same subsidized entity and instead should get the “all others” cash deposit rate of 9.38%. (The new approach, among other concerns, seeks evidence of “significant changes in operations, ownership, corporate or legal structure” that could affect the nature and extent of a company’s subsidy levels.) The Court of International Trade found the ITA’s interpretation reasonable and upheld its final determination. (Slip-Op. 11-20, dated 02/16/11)

U.S. importers Calgon Carbon Corporation and Norit Americas, Inc., as well as two Chinese producer exporters, in a consolidated suit, challenged different aspects of the final results of the first antidumping administrative review of certain activated carbon from China, covering the period October 11, 2006 through March 31, 2008. The Court of International Trade ruled that the International Trade Administration was not obligated to use combination rates though it had done so in the preceding investigation, finding that nothing on the record showed that the ITA was presented with a case of circumvention. The court also ruled that zeroing (excluding U.S. sales made at or above fair value from the weighted average margin) was permissible at the time of the review. However, the court remanded for further review the ITA’s denial of a separate rate for Chinese producer Hebei Foreign Trade and Advertising Corporation, various surrogate values for principal manufacturing components, and the labor rate for Chinese manufacturing. (Slip-Op. 11-21, dated 02/17/11)

A remand redetermination of the final results of the March 2006 -- February 2007 AD administrative review of carbon steel pipes from Thailand brought appeals from both the Thai producer and domestic producers, over how and whether the ITA should add duty drawback adjustments (which are granted by the exporting country on re-exported materials), to normal value and to the cost-of-production calculations that serve to eliminate below-cost sales from margin calculations. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the ITA did not err in granting a duty drawback adjustment, increasing export prices, and increasing the cost of production by the amount of the exempted duties. (See ITT’s Online Archives or 11/24/09 news, 09112440, for BP summary of earlier CIT decision) (Appeal Number 2010-1220, dated 02/14/11.)

Chinese exporters and domestic producers both challenged the final results of the January-December 2007 AD administrative review of wooden bedroom furniture from China, questioning the ITA’s respondent selections, fair value calculations, and adverse rate assignments, among other issues. The Court of International Trade remanded the case to the ITA to 1) consider assigning a separately calculated adverse rate to Orient International Holding Shanghai, rather than the 216.01% country-wide rate, since that rate “greatly exceeds“ the highest individually assigned rate of 29.89% (Orient had duly completed its separate rate questionnaire but later withdrew its cooperation from the review); 2) reconsider the choice of the best set of published prices for wood components; 3) adjust the value for labor per the ITA’s recent redetermination in a prior review under the same order; 4) etc. (See ITT’s Online Archives or 02/11/11 news, 11021111, for BP summary of most recent CIT decision on ITA’s revised approach to NME labor values) (Slip-Op.11-16, decided 02/11/11).

In the May 2007 -- April 2008 AD administrative review of pure magnesium from China, a Chinese exporter reported values for raw materials and by-products supplied to it by an unaffiliated supplier. When the ITA visited the supplier to verify the amounts following the preliminary results, the supplier was not cooperative and provided documents that appeared doctored. The ITA then assigned the Chinese exporter, Tianjin Magnesium, the adverse facts available rate of 111.73%, but the CIT has now remanded the case to the ITA with instructions to make a new finding as to whether the exporting company itself, rather than its unaffiliated supplier, did or did not cooperate to the best of its ability, reasoning that “[t]he court cannot accept a construction…under which the party who suffers the effect of the adverse inference is not the party who failed to cooperate.” (Slip Op. 11-117, dated 02/11/11.)

On February 10, 2011, in Norman G. Jensen, Inc., v. U.S., the Court of International Trade ruled that it lacks jurisdiction to compel U.S. Customs and Border Protection to rule on protests of liquidation, and that plaintiffs seeking a prompt CBP ruling on such protests should use available administrative procedures, such as filing a request for accelerated disposition, instead of seeking action through the CIT.

In the August 2006 - July 2007 antidumping duty administrative review of folding metal ironing tables from China, the ITA found Chinese producer Since Hardware (Gouangzhou) Co., Ltd. had provided falsified certificates of origin for its primary inputs, to claim its steel inputs were from market economy countries. The company had used identical questionable documents in the prior review. Therefore, with a legal challenge to the prior review still underway, domestic producer Home Products, Inc. sought to amend its complaint in that review with the new evidence of fraud, and to remand the case to the International Trade Administration, but the Court of International Trade denied the request. Now the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that since “new evidence indicates the agency’s proceedings were tainted by material fraud,” the CIT must remand the prior review to the ITA.

In its last remand in the antidumping duty investigation of wooden bedroom furniture from China, on the calculation of labor rates to use in valuing non-market economy (NME) exports, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ordered the ITA to use data from countries that are both economically comparable to the producing NME country and that are significant producers of comparable merchandise. The ITA then offered an approach based only on countries with incomes lower than China’s, resulting in far lower labor rate values. In response, domestic producers challenged 1) the ITA’s narrow grouping of low-income countries to use for labor costs; 2) the exclusion of data not available during the investigation period, 3) the exclusion of certain Indian wage data, and 4) the reliance solely on industry-specific wage rates. The Court of International Trade upheld all the agency’s choices except the selection of only countries with lower average incomes than China’s, and ordered the ITA to explain or alter that approach in favor of a more “balanced” set of countries. (See ITT’s Online Archives or 05/12/10 news, 10051935, for BP summary of the preceding appeals court remand.) (Slip Op. 11-14, dated February 9, 2011)

Russian urea producer and exporter MCC Eurochem sued over the International Trade Administration’s use of zeroing in the antidumping administrative review of solid urea from the Russian Federation for the period July 2008 -- June 2009. (Zeroing refers to the ITA’s practice of excluding from its margin calculations in administrative reviews those U.S. transactions which are made at or above fair value, and using only U.S. transactions with dumping margins. The ITA is currently reconsidering the policy.) However, the Court of International Trade denied the challenge, noting that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has consistently upheld the reasonableness of the zeroing practice and has denied petitions for a rehearing in multiple high-profile cases. (Slip Op. 11-13, dated 01/25/11)