The Department of Commerce has issued guidance on deadlines impacted by the government shutdown. The DOC has decided to toll all deadlines for 40 days, except for requests for administrative reviews of suspension agreements and requests for AD and CVD administrative reviews

As 2018 came to a close, there were numerous new filings at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Since our last article, these filings include 337 Complaints, 701 (countervailing duty) & 731 (antidumping duty) Petitions, 131 Requests, and one request for investigation under sections 201-202 of the Trade Act of 1974.

Recent filings include 337 Complaints, 701 (countervailing duty) & 731 (antidumping duty) Petitions, 332 Requests, and one request from the U.S. Trade Representative

The BAT would have two primary effects related to USITC investigations.  First, it would raise the after-tax cost of imports relative to domestically produced goods.  Second, the BAT is likely to cause an appreciation of the U.S. dollar, though economists differ on the degree of the exchange rate adjustment. 

The proposed tax plan has the potential to influence U.S. trade remedy investigations, which depend on the prices at which imported products are sold in the U.S. market and home market prices.  This blog examines how the BAT might affect one aspect of U.S. antidumping investigations: the calculation of dumping margins by the Department of Commerce

In December 2014, Commerce released its new list of surrogate countries for China. Neither Indonesia nor the Philippines are on the new list, meaning that Commerce and parties in China NME cases will face increasing difficulties in finding usable surrogate countries on the official list, outside of Thailand. Perhaps reflecting these new difficulties, Commerce has begun to allow more countries not on the list to serve as surrogate countries.

2014 was another eventful year at the ITC for antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) cases with some 8 petitions filed, 14 investigations completed, and 23 sunset votes on 40 orders. The 8 AD/CVD petitions filed in 2014 were down from the 14 filed last year, but still above the 5 cases filed in 2012.

On September 9, 2014, Capital Trade’s Daniel Klett testified at the USITC in the Chlorinated Isocyanurates final hearing on behalf of the Japanese respondents.

2013 was a big year for new AD/CVD cases.

In total 77.8 percent of all reviews have gone affirmative while only 22.2 percent have gone negative. With each subsequent review cycle, the percentage of cases going affirmative has increased; specifically, 75.4 percent, 78.6 percent, and 89.2 percent of reviews have gone affirmative in the first, second, and third reviews of cases respectively.

When a U.S. control number or “CONNUM” is the same as the comparison market CONNUM the USDOC determines the products to be identical. However, when the identical comparison market CONNUM was not sold, how does the USDOC’s SAS computer programming go about identifying the “most similar” comparison market match?

The former “Nails Test” method for identifying whether a company engaged in targeted dumping was wholly replaced by a two-staged test known as the Differential Pricing Analysis. Beginning in March, 2013 with the Xanthan Gum cases from China and Austria, the Department has applied this new methodology over 50 times with interesting results.

What appears simple on the surface is, in fact, not very simple at all. As a result, the road to understanding, let alone mastering, these calculations can be daunting.

On November 13, 2013, U.S. producer USEC prevailed in a sunset case involving low-enriched uranium imports from France, keeping antidumping duties in place for at least five more years, with a 3-1 win at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

On 23 September 2013, the World Bank released its latest per capita Gross National Income (GNI) rankings for calendar year 2012. Countries that are “close” to China in per capita GNI (i.e., in reasonable proximity to the band fixed by the current surrogate countries) include the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Mexico.