The Court of International Trade ruled that a nitrogen oxide sensor probe for diesel engines should be classified as an instrument of chemical analysis under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9027, rather than an instrument of measurement under heading 9026. Continental Automotive Systems sued CBP over the classification and Judge Jane Restani ruled in favor of the government in the Aug. 12 decision.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
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Remand redeterminations recently submitted by the Commerce Department in two related cases are not final agency decisions that can be sustained by the Court of International Trade, and doing so would circumvent the trade court’s judicial review process, CIT said in a pair of Aug. 10 decisions rejecting the remand results in a case involving a scope ruling on door thresholds. Filed in response to the second CIT remands in cases involving two respective scope rulings that found the door thresholds from Columbia and Worldwide Door subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China, the remand redeterminations, filed under protest, only promise a future “revised scope ruling” if the trade court sustains. “Because it is not the actual scope ruling or determination Commerce plans to issue, it would not be self-effectuating should the court sustain it, and the agency decision that would follow if it were sustained would escape direct judicial review,” CIT said in the two nearly identical opinions.
Minor issues in reporting home market sales in an antidumping duty administrative review don’t rise to the level that would justify an adverse facts available margin for an exporter’s large power transformers from South Korea, and the exporter’s purported lack of cooperation in a previous year’s administrative review does not give Commerce leeway to apply AFA anyway, said the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 11 decision. Affirming a decision of the Court of International Trade, the Federal Circuit upheld the lower court’s finding that the errors in a small subset of Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems’s reported home market sales “were inadvertent and were corrected without undue difficulty,” and should not have served as the basis for the 60.81% AFA rate originally assigned by Commerce. On remand, Commerce had dropped its reliance on AFA and calculated a zero percent AD duty rate. Hitachi, petitioner in the case, had appealed.
The Court of International Trade was wrong to consider China's non-market economy status when analyzing whether to grant first sale treatment, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Aug. 11 ruling. The decision overturns and remands a 2021 CIT ruling that said that first sale treatment shouldn't apply for cookware imported by Meyer from Thailand and China through a Chinese middleman because China is a NME.
The Commerce Department continued to apply countervailing duties for China’s Export Buyer’s Credit Program to two Chinese wooden cabinet exporters in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade Aug. 5, despite a court-ordered effort by the agency to validate non-use of the program without information withheld by the Chinese government.
Plaintiffs in three similar cases challenging CBP’s denial of delinquency interest on collected antidumping and countervailing duties under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to three notices of appeal filed Aug. 5. The Court of International Trade ruled in June that CBP properly denied the payments, relying on CBP’s interpretation of how to administer CDSOA and define how interest is earned on AD/CVD given ambiguities in the statute pertaining to delinquency interest (see 2206160074). Among the appellants are Monterey Mushrooms, Hilex Poly and American Drew.
The Commerce Department erred in its calculations when determining the cost of honey during an antidumping duty investigation, AD duty petitioners American Honey Producers Association and the Sioux Honey Association said in an August 5 complaint at the Court of International Trade (American Honey Producers Association v. United States, CIT #22-00195).
The Commerce Department made multiple errors in its treatment of Grupo Simec during an antidumping duty review on steel concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) from Mexico, including the incorrect application of adverse facts available to respondent Simec, Simec said in an Aug. 8 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Grupo Simec, et. al. v. United States, CIT #22-00202).