Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during a March 7 oral argument prodded various statutory interpretations of U.S. countervailing duty law as it pertains to finding whether demand for a good is "substantially dependent" on an upstream product for purposes of assigning countervailing duties. If substantial dependence is established, Commerce may attribute subsidies to a raw agricultural grower to a later stage producer.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2018 review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea. In its remand redetermination, Commerce lowered exporter Hyundai Steel Co.'s CVD rate to a de minimis mark after removing the subsidy attributed to the company's usage rights for the North Incheon Harbor in South Korea (see 2401240062) (Hyundai Steel Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00304).
An importer said that CBP liquidated 227 of its entries at an incorrect 1.02% AD rather than at the proper de minimis rate, then denied its protests and refused refunds despite a correction from Commerce (PNS Clearance v. U.S., CIT #24-00044).
Georgia woman Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois filed suit at the Court of International Trade Feb. 16 to contest six questions on the October 2021 customs broker license exam. In her complaint, Stoute-Francois said that after appealing the test results to the Treasury Department, she was left just short of the 75% grade needed to pass the test, failing at 73.75% (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).
In a complex case involving antidumping duties on Indian quartz countertops, a defendant-intervenor that represents Indian exporters on Feb. 9 again argued against the AD petitioner’s claim for a 161.56% dumping margin calculated for a review’s non-individually examined respondents (Cambria Company v. U.S., CIT # 23-00007).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 8, in a case brought by domestic petitioners, sustained the Commerce Department’s finding that a Chinese wood flooring exporter that had refused to participate as a 2018-2019 antidumping duty review’s mandatory respondent was still eligible for separate rate status. But the court's decision to allow Commerce to use adverse facts available against the exporter meant the review’s non-individually investigated separate rate respondents saw their rates jump from zero percent to 42.57%.
In a Jan. 31 supplemental filing after oral arguments held a week earlier by the Court of International Trade, petitioners again rejected the Commerce Department's calculation of a Turkish exporter's duty drawback adjustment. On the same day, DOJ pushed back in its own supplemental filings on a pair of questions from the court (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #21-00246).
The petitioner in an antidumping duty case supported its motion for summary judgment Jan. 31 by saying that, since the passage of the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015, the Commerce Department is no longer required to consider accuracy when setting antidumping margins. On the same day, an exporter and several importers also fought opposition to their own motions for judgment (Cambria Company v. U.S., CIT # 23-00007).
The Rebar Trade Action Coalition, a domestic petitioner and defendant-intervenor in a case recently decided in the Court of International Trade, announced Jan. 26 it will be filing an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It is seeking to overturn CIT’s holding that Turkish shipbuilding company and scrap metal supplier Nur Gemicilik ve Ticaret isn't a cross-owned input supplier of Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret, a rebar producer and countervailing duty respondent in the Commerce Department’s 2018 investigation of its products (see 2311270059). The decision meant that Commerce didn't have to attribute Nur’s government subsidies to Kaptan, which ultimately received a de minimis duty in the review (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT # 21-00565).