New Hampshire-based company Intertech Trading Corp. violated the law when it failed to file export information for equipment it sent to Russia and Ukraine, the U.S. alleged in a filing at the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire.The parts, which included laser assemblies, were "falsely described" as aquarium and multimedia parts and valued at lower amounts than their actual worth, DOJ said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held in a June 16 opinion that window covering manufacturer Springs Window Fashions did not illegally fire customs broker Jennifer Lam-Quang-Vinh over her position that the company had to pay Section 301 China tariffs. Judges Diane Sykes, Michael Brennan and Michael Scudder said that the record evidence does not support Lam's position that she was fired in retaliation (Jennifer Lam-Quang-Vinh v. Springs Window Fashions, 7th Cir. #21-2665).
The Commerce Department properly used the expected method to determine the non-selected respondent's rate in an antidumping duty review of steel nails from Taiwan, the Court of International Trade said in a June 16 opinion. Judge Mark Barnett ruled that the burden was on the plaintiffs, led by PrimeSource Building Products, to establish that the expected method -- the practice of averaging adverse facts available rates in the absence of non-AFA, zero or de minimis margins -- should not be used. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs gave no evidence to back their claim that the expected method was not reasonably reflective of their actual margins.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate June 16 in two cases contesting whether the Commerce Department properly modified the scope of its antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on quartz surface products from China in response to evasion. Building materials company Bruskin International argued that Commerce was wrong to accept the petitioner's scope request, claiming that the agency should have treated it as a request to amend the petition. In the opinion, the appellate court held that the agency is not bound to the preliminary scope and that it had properly changed the scope under its own authority and not per the petitioner's request (see 2204250029) (M S International, et al. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-1679, -1680).
The Commerce Department properly dropped its particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test, the Court of International Trade held in a June 16 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that since the question of whether Commerce can make such an adjustment was settled in the key Hyundai Steel v. U.S. case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, "the court need not waste its or the Parties' resources any further."
The Court of International Trade in a June 15 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's final determination in the 2019 antidumping duty investigation on wood mouldings and millwork products from Brazil. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that Commerce properly combined the three mandatory respondents -- Araupel, Braslumber Industria de Molduras and BrasPine Madeiras -- into a single entity and correctly didn't apply the major input rule to certain log purchases. Commerce was also right to revise Araupel's general and administrative expenses to account for fair value adjustments associated with the annual revaluation of standing trees in the company's unharvested forests, the court said. The result is a zero percent dumping margin for the collapsed entity.
CBP properly denied payouts of interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, on collected antidumping and countervailing duties under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, the Court of International Trade said in a series of five nearly identical opinions. Judge Timothy Stanceu ruled that it must rely on CBP's interpretation of how to administer the CDSOA and define how interest is earned on AD/CV duties given ambiguities in the statute pertaining to delinquency interest. The court also held that given that the interest is put into a single sum after liquidation, it loses its "individual character" and is no longer interest earned on the duties.
Angel Del Villar and Luca Scalisi, two California music business executives, were charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced June 14. The two face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: