The Court of International Trade on April 17 sent back the Commerce Department's decision to use the 2018-19 investigation period for its antidumping investigation on fresh tomatoes from Mexico. The investigation was resumed after being suspended multiple times since 1995, wrote Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves, saying that the statute and congressional intent are clear that Commerce, when resuming a suspended investigation, must continue with the original investigation period. The judge made this decision after first finding that U.S. grower Red Sun Farms requested the continuation of the investigation when it made its request in 2019. Choe-Groves said that U.S. companies can make new requests for the continuation of suspended investigations after each suspension.
A Russian pipe exporter contested the International Trade Commission's redetermination upon remand that Russian pipe imports into the U.S. were injuring domestic industry (see 2402120048). It said the ITC didn’t make any changes to its analysis in the redetermination, contrary to an order by the Court of International Trade (PAO TMK v. U.S., CIT # 21-00532).
Chinese exporter Ninestar Corp. will submit a delisting petition with the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force to get off the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, the company told the Court of International Trade in an April 12 status report (Ninestar Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00182).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on April 12 ruled that Texas construction equipment distributor I Dig Texas didn't falsely represent its skid steer attachments as being made in the U.S. The court said the company's advertisements were ambiguous on whether the products' parts are all American-made or whether the goods themselves were assembled in the U.S. (I Dig Texas v. Kerry Creager, 10th Cir. # 23-5046).
In a third amended scheduling order, the Court of International Trade set a new Aug. 13 deadline for motions in a case that has been ongoing since 2022. The extension follows an amended complaint filed April 1 in which plaintiff Zoetis Services said that CBP had classified a “nearly identical” product to its own under a Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading it preferred (Zoetis Services LLC v. U.S., CIT #22-00056).
A petitioner in a review of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain chassis and subassemblies from China filed a consent motion April 10 to intervene in a case challenging that review brought by importer Pitts Enterprises. The Coalition of American Chassis Manufacturers said it intends to join the case on the side of Pitts to litigate the Commerce Department’s interpretation of the orders’ language (Pitts Enterprises, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00030).
The Court of International Trade on April 11 sent back the Commerce Department's duty drawback adjustment to exporter Assan Aluminyum, which led to a de minimis antidumping duty rate in the AD investigation on common alloy aluminum sheet from Turkey. Judge Gary Katzmann said it "appears that" Commerce's methodology "impermissibly increased Assan's export price by more than 'the amount of any import duties imposed by the country of exportation which have been rebated."
The U.S. last week transferred thousands of weapons and rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces that were confiscated from unflagged vessels en route to Yemen from Iran as part of a civil forfeiture action, DOJ announced on April 9. The shipment included "over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, and RPG-7s, and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition."
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
An exporter of vehicle side bars said April 8 that Section 301 tariff exclusions shouldn't necessarily be considered princpal use provisions, but should instead be analyzed as either principal use, eo nomine or actual use provisions on a case-by-case basis because no published guidance singles out a specific method (Keystone Automotive Operations v. U.S., CIT # 21-00215).