The International Trade Commission's decision not to cumulate imports from Brazil with imports from Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and the U.K. in a hot-rolled steel injury proceeding violated the law, U.S. steel maker Cleveland-Cliffs argued in a Jan. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The ITC focused on the likely volume of the Brazilian imports in the cumulation analysis, failing to support the decision with substantial evidence and failing to address its departure from its past practice (Cleveland-Cliffs v. United States, CIT #22-00355).
The Commerce Department arbitrarily and capriciously found that exporter Officine Tecnosider failed to challenge the agency's decision to reject quarterly cost methodology in an antidumping review, the exporter argued in a Jan. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce further violated the law by rejecting quarterly cost methodology based on its review of the three largest inputs' quarterly average prices and by failing to calculate an accurate dumping margin, the brief said (Officine Tecnosider v. United States, CIT # 23-00001).
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 24 opinion ordered the Commerce Department to drop to zero a 26.50% estimated subsidy rate for the provision of land to an affiliate of respondent Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL) that was included in GFL's countervailing duty rate in a CVD investigation. Judge Timothy Stanceu said Commerce should not have included the subsidy because the agency overlooked the type of relationship the regulation requires between subsidies to inputs and the downstream product in the production chain.
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 25 opinion dismissed a case from J.D. Irving on the Commerce Department's cash deposit instructions to CBP after the 2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber products from Canada. Judge Timothy Reif said that the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since jurisdiction would have been available under Section 1581(c), "but for the decision" by parties involved to request a binational panel review of the AD review under USMCA.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade should uphold CBP's finding that importers Ikadan System USA and Weihai Gaosai Metal Product Co. evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel grating from China, defendant-intervenor Hog Slat argued in a Jan. 20 reply brief at CIT. The trade court must reject the plaintiff's arguments that their tribar flooring imports are not under the scope of the orders since CBP's covered merchandise finding "reflected the typical analysis undertaken by Commerce with respect to questions of scope which, although not required of CBP, demonstrates the analytical reasonableness of CBP's approach," the brief said (Ikadan System USA v. United States, CIT #21-00592).
Counterweights for mini excavators should be subject to Section 301 tariffs because they qualify as parts for "backhoes," the government argued in a Jan. 23 brief at the Court of International Trade. DOJ asked the court to deny plaintiff Norca Engineered Products' Nov. 3 motion for summary judgment and to find that the counterweights are backhoe parts and therefore not subject to a Section 301 exclusion (Norca Engineered Products v. U.S., CIT #21-00305).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential Jan. 24 opinion upheld CBP's evasion finding in an Enforce and Protect Act case brought by Leco Supply. In a letter accompanying the decision, Judge Mark Barnett gave the parties until Jan. 31 to review the confidential information in the opinion (Leco Supply v. United States, CIT # 21-00136).
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The government's motion to dismiss an Enforce and Protect Act case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit because the entries at issue have been liquidated would deprive importer Royal Brush Manufacturing of any judicial recourse and allow CBP's illegal liquidation of the entries, Royal Brush argued in a Jan. 23 reply brief. Arguing the case is moot because of the liquidations misconstrues the law and presumes incorrectly that Royal Brush’s interests are limited to the erroneous assessment of additional duties," the importer said (Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1226).