The Court of International Trade on July 11 upheld the Commerce Department's decision to grant exporter East Sea Seafoods a separate antidumping duty rate in the 2019-20 review of the AD order on catfish from Vietnam. Judge M. Miller Baker also upheld Commerce's decision to base exporter Green Farms' separate rate on a simple average of respondent NTSF Seafood's zero percent margin and East Sea's adverse facts available rate.
The Court of International Trade on July 9 sustained CBP's finding that importers American Pacific Plywood, InterGlobal Forest and U.S. Global Forest evaded the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on plywood from China through Cambodian manufacturer LB Wood. Judge M. Miller Baker held that all that's required for liability to attach under the Enforce and Protect Act is "the entry of covered merchandise through any material false statement or material omission that avoids antidumping and countervailing duties, except those resulting from clerical errors," noting that even clerical errors are evasion if they are "part of a pattern of negligent conduct." The judge also held that CBP isn't precluded from finding that shipments from LB Wood are of Chinese origin in light of two other CIT cases the agency settled in which it said shipments from LB Wood are of Cambodian origin. Baker said the doctrine of judicial estoppel doesn't apply here, however, since CBP didn't succeed in advancing a position "directly inconsistent" with its theory in the present case, given that its initial position in the two settled cases was identical to its position here "but it then ran up the white flag."
The Court of International Trade on July 3 sustained CBP's finding that importers Newtrend USA, Starille and Nutrawave evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on glycine from China. Judge Stephen Vaden said the evasion determination, which found that the importers transshipped Chinese glycine in Indonesia, was supported by substantial evidence. Following "an extensive in-person verification" of exporter PT Newtrend's Indonesian factory, CBP found the exporter couldn't make glycine at the scale PT Newtrend and the importers claimed. Vaden said there was substantial evidence for CBP's theory that PT Newtrend acquired glycine from its Chinese parent company to export to the U.S. and that the importers "offer no alternative explanation for how PT Newtrend acquired its glycine."
The Court of International Trade on July 3 granted importer Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations' motion to include three documents the Commerce Department declined to put on the record in the antidumping duty investigation into truck and bus tires from Thailand. Judge Gary Katzmann said he needed the three documents to be on the record to properly review whether Commerce permissibly rejected them in the investigation. Katzmann also declined to consolidate Bridgetstone's suit with another case challenging the same AD investigation filed by the petitioner, United Steelworkers.
The Court of International Trade in a pair of decisions on June 25 called for future litigation to clarify whether the Commerce Department's interpretation of the "subassemblies" provision in the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China comports with AD/CVD law.
The two importers challenging tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act before the District Court for the District of Columbia directly petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case. The importers, Learning Resources and Hand2Mind, represented by Akin Gump, said the question of whether IEEPA authorizes tariffs "will inevitably fall to this Court to resolve definitively." The companies said they can't wait for the normal appellate process to wrap up, even on an expedited basis, given the "tariffs’ massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the Nation, and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the President claims." The importers are only asking the high court to review whether IEEPA provides for tariffs and not any of its other challenges to President Donald Trump's IEEPA tariff action, noting that it's the only claim the government says courts have the power to review.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 17 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to use partial adverse facts available against respondent Salzgitter Flachstahl in the antidumping duty investigation on cut-to-length carbon and alloy steel plate from Germany for its failure to provide manufacturer information for around 28,000 of its downstream sales made in Germany by one of its affiliates. Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Alan Lourie said that while Commerce's request for the manufacturer information placed an "unreasonable burden" on the respondent, Salzgitter didn't provide sufficient alternatives to supplying the information. The judges said "randomized sampling would have been a reasonable" alternative to the missing data.
The Court of International Trade on June 16 held that The Comfy, a "wearable, oversized item covering the front and back with a hood, sleeves, ribbed cuffs, and a marsupial pocket," is a pullover and not a blanket. Issuing a decision after a five-day bench trial last year, Judge Stephen Vaden concluded that, as a matter of fact, The Comfy doesn't protect against "extreme cold," and the item fits under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 6110 as a pullover. Specifically, the item will now be classified under subheading 6110.30.30, dutiable at 32%.
The Court of International Trade on June 16 held that the Commerce Department's regulations setting deadlines to file separate rate applications and certifications can't supersede the statutory requirement to pick mandatory respondents based on the volume of their exports. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce erred in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on steel racks from China by picking respondents based on value and not volume of U.S. sales and in declining to consider the largest exporter, Nanjing Dongsheng Shelf Manufacturing, based on its untimely separate rate certification. The judge said Dongsheng's information was "reasonably available" to the agency, since it was filed the same time as the information from other respondents who received filing extensions.
The Court of International Trade on June 12 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the countervailing duty investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce complied with his remand instructions by prorating the countervailing duty set on exporter The Ancientree Cabinet to account for the percentage of its U.S. customers that failed to verify nonuse of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program. As a result, Commerce lowered Ancientree's CVD cash deposit rate from 13.33% to 5.06% and calculated individual CVD rates for the exporter's U.S. buyers, though the agency said the cash deposit rate has been superseded by the cash deposit rate given to Ancientree based on the 2022 review of the CVD order.