The Court of International Trade will allow a customs broker test-taker to proceed with a challenge to his failing grade, denying a motion to dismiss from the government that argued his case didn’t meet procedural requirements. Byungmin Chae’s delay in appealing to the trade court was caused in part by CBP’s own misleading statements, and his early missteps in the case before hiring a lawyer should not bar him from a hearing in court, CIT said in a decision May 7.
The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available in an antidumping case, finding that the agency did not allow for proper notice and response from South Korean steel exporter Hyundai Steel Co. In an April 27 opinion made public on May 6, Judge Richard Eaton ruled that Commerce also violated its statutory authority by assigning the all-others rate to one of Hyundai's affiliated freight companies -- dubbed “Company A” in the opinion. On remand, Commerce was instructed to identify the precise data that it judged insufficient and give Hyundai an opportunity to fix the deficiency.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Canadian botanical goods exporter Second Nature Designs reached an agreement with the Department of Justice on 835 product styles that fall within the Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading under dispute in a customs case brought by the importer in the Court of International Trade. According to a May 5 joint status report, the two parties agreed to the product styles under HTS subheading 0604.90.3000 for "foliage, branches and other parts of plants, without flowers or flower buds, and grasses, mosses and lichens, being goods of a kind suitable for bouquets or for ornamental purposes, fresh, dried, dyed, bleached, impregnated or otherwise prepared: Other: dried or bleached," but the sides have more styles in dispute.
Despite hotly contested litigation in the lower court, the Justice Department has been notably absent from an appeal of an antidumping case initially brought by exporter Goodluck India Limited. During May 3 oral argument in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, counsel for a group of tubing producers appealing the case refused to speculate on the government's lack of participation in the case but did point out that the Commerce Department did file its remand determination under respectful protest in the initial Court of International Trade proceedings (Goodluck India Limited, v. U.S. et al., Fed. Cir. # 2020-2017).
Apparel importer Imperia Trading's statement of material facts is filled with statements devoid of evidence and thus contrary to the rules of the Court of International Trade, the Department of Justice argued in a May 5 motion to strike parts of Imperia's evidence from the record. While conceding such requests are rarely granted, DOJ asked the court to strike multiple paragraphs in the statement, saying they fail to cite any evidence, constitute legal arguments or conclusions of law, cite evidence that does not support the paragraph and rely on evidence containing untranslated foreign language.
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The Court of International Trade will allow a customs broker test-taker to proceed with a challenge to his failing grade, denying a motion to dismiss from the government that argued his case didn’t meet procedural requirements. Byungmin Chae’s delay in appealing to the trade court was caused in part by CBP’s own misleading statements, and his early missteps in the case before hiring a lawyer should not bar him from a hearing in court, CIT said in a decision May 7.
Negative injury determinations that ended antidumping duty investigations on polyethylene terephthalate resin from Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan in 2018 will stand, after the Court of International Trade sustained a remand redetermination from the International Trade Commission that provided further explanation of the ITC’s decisions without any changes to the end result.
The Commerce Department's preliminary application of an adverse facts available rate for a mandatory respondent to more than 40 non-selected respondents in an antidumping duty administrative review on stainless steel flanges from India violates the agency's obligation to calculate accurate rates, the lawyer for some of those non-selected respondents said in a May 4 letter to the agency. Peter Koenig of Squire Patton criticized the agency's practice of selecting a limited number of mandatory respondents in antidumping reviews, finding AFA on the respondents, then applying the erroneously reached higher dumping rate to all other respondents. He noted that, in a recent case involving Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group, CIT found that this use of Commerce's "Mandatory Respondent Exception" goes against its statutory intention, which was to determine an "accurate all-others rate, based on a weighted average of rates determined for mandatory respondents" (see 2104300079). "Commerce should accurately calculate Chandan’s dumping margin, if not for Chandan (as should), but then for the 44 other Indian companies to whom Commerce is applying the Chandan dumping margin," Koenig's letter said. Chandan, the mandatory respondent, was assigned a 140.38% antidumping duty rate in the preliminary results of the review issued in February, and that rate was also extended to the non-selected respondents.