United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

OMAN FASTENERS, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

UNITED STATES, Defendant

MID CONTINENT STEEL & WIRE, INC., Defendant-Appellant ______________________

2023-1661 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of International Trade in No. 1:22-cv-00348-MMB, Judge M. Miller Baker. ______________________

Decided: January 7, 2025 ______________________

MICHAEL R. HUSTON, Perkins Coie LLP, Phoenix, AZ, argued for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented by ANDREW CARIDAS, MICHAEL PAUL HOUSE, JONATHAN IRVIN TIETZ, Washington, DC; ANDREW DUFRESNE, SOPEN B. SHAH, Madison, WI.

ADAM H. GORDON, The Bristol Group PLLC, Washing- ton, DC, argued for defendant-appellant. Also represented by BENJAMIN JACOB BAY, JENNIFER MICHELE SMITH-VELUZ. ______________________ Case: 23-1661 Document: 65 Page: 2 Filed: 01/07/2025

2 OMAN FASTENERS, LLC v. US

Before MOORE, Chief Judge, SCHALL and TARANTO, Circuit Judges. TARANTO, Circuit Judge. Based on its 2015 antidumping-duty order covering certain steel nails from the Sultanate of Oman, the U.S. Department of Commerce conducted an administrative re- view under section 751 of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S.C. § 1675, of merchandise that was covered by the 2015 order and entered into the United States between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021 (the 2020–2021 administrative review). Oman Fasteners, LLC, a foreign producer and exporter of steel nails covered by the 2015 order, was the sole manda- tory respondent in the 2020–2021 administrative review. Commerce issued a detailed questionnaire to Oman Fas- teners, and on the day a response was due, counsel for Oman Fasteners submitted the response through Com- merce’s electronic filing system, but the system did not re- port acceptance of the submission (deemed necessary for completion) until 16 minutes after a deadline of 5:00 PM. The next day, as authorized by Commerce rules, counsel for Oman Fasteners made the final redactions for confiden- tial information. Oman Fasteners did not call its tardiness to the atten- tion of Commerce officials. Five weeks later, after certain Commerce personnel noticed the 16-minute delay, Com- merce rejected Oman Fasteners’ response. Commerce pro- ceeded to issue the final results of the review without considering any of the information in the response and in- stead applied an inference adverse to Oman Fasteners, un- der 19 U.S.C. § 1677e(b), to arrive at an antidumping-duty rate for Oman Fasteners of 154.33%. The ruling had the immediate effect of requiring the importer of all new en- tries of Oman Fasteners’ covered nails to make cash depos- its with the government of that amount. Previously, under Case: 23-1661 Document: 65 Page: 3 Filed: 01/07/2025

OMAN FASTENERS, LLC v. US 3

the 2019–2020 administrative review, the duty rate was 1.65% and therefore so was the cash-deposit rate. Oman Fasteners filed an action in the Court of Inter- national Trade (Trade Court) to challenge the final results, and it promptly sought a preliminary injunction against imposition of the 154.33% duty rate. Domestic steel-nail producer Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc. (Mid Conti- nent)—which had filed the petition that led to the 2015 an- tidumping-duty order and which had participated in the 2020–2021 administrative review—intervened as a defend- ant. After consolidating the preliminary-injunction pro- ceeding with a trial on the merits, the Trade Court held that Commerce abused its discretion and remand