A proposed voluntary remand of an Enforce and Protect Act case should be allowed to proceed as is, over an importer's objections, DOJ said in an Oct. 2 brief to the Court of International Trade. DOJ filed a motion to remand the case in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S., in which the court said CBP violated an EAPA party's due process rights by not granting them access to business confidential information (see 2309150011) (Newtrend USA Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00347).
Ben Perkins
Ben Perkins, Assistant Editor, is a reporter with International Trade Today and its sister publications, Trade Law Daily and Export Compliance Daily, where he covers sanctions, court rulings, and other international trade issues. He previously worked as a trade analyst for a Washington D.C. advisory firm. Ben holds a B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. in International Relations from American University. Ben joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2022.
The Commerce Department unlawfully chose to include sales of wood chips in its calculation of market value and incorrectly found that one of Canfor's sawmills purchased electricity from an affiliate, the Canadian softwood lumber exporter said in its Oct. 2 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The department's use of a differential pricing method also was unlawful, the exporter said in its request for remand (Canfor Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00188).
Commerce's use of adverse facts available for the Export Buyer's Credit Program (EBCP) in the review of a countervailing duty order on common alloy aluminum sheet from China was unlawful because there wasn't actually a gap in the record as to whether exporter Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum and its customers used the program, the exporter said in an Oct. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Even if there was, Commerce failed to provide exporter Alcha with a chance to fix it, the exporter said (Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00290).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 29 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Commerce Department unlawfully failed to offset interest expenses with interest income in calculating the costs of production for shrimp exporter Megaa Moda, the company said in a Sept. 29 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade (Megaa Moda Private Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00205).
The Court of International Trade should sustain the Commerce Department's remand redetermination in an antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Cambodia, upholding that the agency's use of a simple average in surrogate value cost calculations was legal and its use of financial statements from Emirates Sleep, DOJ said in Sept. 29 remand comments (Best Mattresses International v. U.S., CIT # 21-00281).
The Commerce Department's continued use of adverse facts against Risen Energy for its alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program (EBCP) and its benchmark calculations for land use and ocean freight were lawful and supported by substantial evidence on remand, DOJ said in a Sept. 29 response at the Court of International Trade (Risen Energy v. U.S., CIT # 20-03912).
A defendant in a criminal fraud case shouldn't be allowed to add his criminal attorney to a protective order in a related civil case, DOJ argued in a Sept. 28 motion at the Court of International Trade (U.S. v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT # 22-00215).
CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigation on whether Ebuy Enterprises and Highland USA International evaded an antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China. The agency said it found reasonable suspicion existed that the importers had transshipped Chinese-origin xanthan gum through Malaysia, necessitating the imposition of interim measures.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: