CBP erred when making its finding that importer CEK Group evaded the antidumping duty order on steel wire garment hangers from China by transshipping them through Thailand, CEK said in a March 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Among other things, CEK alleged in its 12-count complaint that CBP failed to address all of the arguments raised by the importer, made its decision without substantial evidence of transshipment and improperly refused to grant CEK access to business confidential information in the case (CEK Group v. United States, CIT #22-00082).
The Court of International Trade remanded an antidumping duty evasion case, in a March 11 order for CBP to fully consider the record. The agency requested the remand after it found out plaintiff Norca Industrial Company was not privy to documents relating to a third-party's visit to a Vietnamese manufacturer's production site. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves limited the remand to the issue of the whole record and not the other issues raised by Norca.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a March 11 order that the Commerce Department did not properly support its position that a particular market situation existed affecting inputs to oil country tubular goods from South Korea. Finding that three of Commerce's five reasons for finding a PMS were not backed by enough evidence, the Federal Circuit upheld the Court of International Trade's identical ruling. The appellate court also remanded Commerce's differential pricing analysis -- used to uncover "masked" dumping -- for relying on a statistical test that did not fulfill certain conditions to properly run the test.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department cannot hit a countervailing duty respondent with adverse facts available relating to its alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program since there's no gap on the record over the respondent's EBCP usage, respondent Wuxi Tianran Photovoltaic Co. said in a March 9 brief at the Court of International Trade. Tianran's U.S. customers properly verified that they did not use the EBCP, the brief said (Wuxi Tianran Photovoltaic Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00538).
The Court of International Trade told litigants in a paperless order to file a proposed stipulated judgment in a countervailing duty case after a resolution of the matter was reached following a voluntary remand from the Commerce Department. Commerce said that a South Korean sewerage fees program was not countervailable, leading to a de minimis rate for plaintiff Hyundai Steel Company. In a March 9 joint status report, Hyundai and the U.S. said that case was resolved following the voluntary remand (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, CIT #21-00012).
The Court of International Trade should deny the U.S.'s motion to dismiss a case from Wheatland Tube Co. seeking to compel CBP to respond to requests for information and a tariff classification ruling, Wheatland said in a March 9 reply brief. DOJ had said the trade court should toss the case, in part, since it already responded to the RFI and petition for a tariff classification. Wheatland disagreed, arguing that CBP's limited response failed to meet the requirements of Section 1516 which mandates that CBP "furnish the classification and the rate of duty imposed upon designated imported merchandise" (Wheatland Tube Company v. United States, CIT #22-00004).
Mayer Brown wants nearly $3 million in legal fees over a False Claims Act case it won for Island Industries in which a California district court said that Japanese manufacturer Sigma Corporation avoided antidumping duties. Petitioning the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Mayer Brown said that the $3 million request for fees, costs and expenses -- amounting to around 11.3% of the total judgment -- is "eminitely reasonably and justified" given Sigma's complex defense of its actions in multiple venues (United States v. Vandewater International, C.D. Cal. #17-04393).
Exporter China Customs Manufacturing's solar panel mount assemblies are "fully and completely assembled" at the time they're imported, thus qualifying for a finished merchandise exclusion from the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, CCM argued. Filing its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 8, CCM, along with Greentec Engineering, argued that the record shows that the solar panel mount assemblies satisfy each of the requirements for the exclusion, including being fully assembled at the time of entry (China Custom Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1345).
The Commerce Department gave itself more time to consider whether to begin an anti-circumvention inquiry on solar cells from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, in a March 9 memo. The petition alleges that Chinese solar panel manufacturers have shifted manufacturing to Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam to circumvent the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on solar cells and modules from China (see 2202090060).