In dueling submissions to the Court of International Trade following oral arguments on April 19, DOJ and Ancientree made their final cases for the best surrogate country pick in the antidumping investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. In a feud over whether Commerce should have picked Malaysia or Romania, the main contention was detailed financial statements versus more comparable producers in quantity and quality of product.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit vacated the sentencing of a Jordanian-born U.S. citizen for illicit arms dealings in guided surface-to-air missiles due to a venue error, in an April 12 opinion. Finding that the District Court for the Central District of California was not the proper court to challenge Rami Ghanem for the alleged conspiracy to deal the missiles, the 9th Circuit vacated the sentencing and remanded the case. Ghanem was first arrested in Greece, then extradited to New York, making the Eastern District of New York the proper home for the case, the 9th Circuit said.

The Commerce Department continued on course in a remand redetermination on cold-rolled steel from South Korea submitted to the Court of International Trade April 19. The agency offered further explanation in response to a December 2020 Federal Circuit decision that struck down aspects of its final determination in the original CV duty investigation on cold-rolled steel, but did not make any changes to its findings to address concerns over a finding that electricity offered at less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) was not a countervailable subsidy. The Federal Circuit had remanded because Commerce had purportedly relied on its old “preferentiality” standard, and failed to address a second South Korean electricity producer.