Recall from these two posts that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruled last year that the Department of Commerce can't take an inconsistent approach to zeroing -- no zeroing in investigations, but zeroing in administrative reviews -- without a good reason. The CAFC remanded to the DOC, with instructions to provide its reasoning. DOC did so, and its redetermination pursuant to the remand was appealed to the Court of International Trade (CIT). The CIT opinion (by Judge Restani) was issued Monday, and is here. The key conclusion:
Commerce did not abuse its discretion in changing its investigation methodology, but not its review methodology, in the Final Modification in response to WTO decisions. Commerce acted reasonably in applying the antidumping statute to conform to the different purposes of investigations and reviews. Commerce’s practices are not arbitrary in this regard.
I'm not sure I can provide a good summary of the opinion, but let me just say that if you have been following the zeroing saga, it is worth a read. Lots of good discussion of particular aspects of the issue.
And, of course, I look forward to the likely appeal back to the CAFC!
