The Commerce Department's denial of separate rate status to Pirelli Tyre Co. during the first 10 months of the review period in an antidumping duty administrative review was improper because the importer was not yet owned by a Chinese government-associated entity during that time frame, the Court of International Trade said in a Sept. 24 order. Remanding in part and sustaining in part Commerce's second remand results in the AD duty review of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves also sustained Commerce's decision, under protest, to drop the downward adjustment for irrecoverable value-added tax to mandatory respondent Qingdao Sentury Tire Co.'s export price.
Rimco, a steel importer, challenged the antidumping and countervailing duties assessed on its steel wheel imports from China as being excessive fines in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in a Sept. 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Rimco said that the extremely high and excessive AD/CVD rates were not remedial but in fact penal in nature, leading to the deprivation of property when CBP imposed the AD/CV duties (Rimco, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00537).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Labor Department's decision to continue to find that a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees are not entitled to trade adjustment assistance for outsourced jobs gives a "half-baked analysis" of the situation, the workers said in a Sept. 20 filing at the Court of International Trade. The plaintiffs accused the agency of failing to ever fully grapple with contradicting evidence on the record in its remand results (Communications Workers of America Local 4123, on behalf of Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc. v. United States Secretary of Labor, CIT #20-00075).
The Commerce Department cannot make a particular market situation adjustment in the sales-below-cost test when calculating normal value, the Court of International Trade again ruled in a Sept. 23 opinion. Pointing to multiple CIT rulings reaching the same conclusion (see 2107210065), Judge Gary Katzmann said that since the statute in one section has language permitting a PMS adjustment but excludes it in the section on normal value adjustments, Commerce could not make the PMS adjustment. Katzmann also said that even if such an adjustment were allowed, Commerce did not provide enough evidence that a PMS existed.
A company challenging CBP's finding that it evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on xanthan gum should have its lawsuit tossed because it failed to appeal CBP's denial of its protest on the relevant entries, even though the importer filed its case under CIT's Section 1581(c) jurisdiction, which covers AD/CVD proceedings, the Department of Justice said in a Sept. 22 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (All One God Faith, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00164).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The International Trade Commission ignored that the domestic tire industry was profitable when it made its determination that passenger vehicle and light truck tires from South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam were harming the domestic industry, plaintiffs led by Sentury Tire (Thailand) Co. said in a Sept. 17 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Sentury also argued that the commission failed to properly consider the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the domestic industry (Sentury Tire (Thailand) Co. Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00439).
Despite the Department of Justice's agreement to a limited injunction against liquidation through the end of the first administrative review of the relevant antidumping duty order, Ashley Furniture still seeks an open-ended injunction is needed to avoid irreparable harm due to a potentially years-long litigation that could run beyond the end of the first review, Ashley said in a Sept. 17 reply brief at the Court of International Trade.
The Commerce Department's mandatory respondent selection process in a countervailing duty case on wood flooring resembled "Russian roulette" due to fundamental errors in the CBP data used to make the respondent picks, plaintiffs in a case at the Court of International Trade said in four briefs (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03885).