The U.S and importer Target General Merchandise reached a settlement over the proper classification of girl's glitter/fabric ballet shoes, the parties said in a July 26 stipulation of dismissal. The Court of International Trade then order the case be dismissed without providing any details as to the settlement. Target launched its case in 2017, though the matter sat on the customs case management calendar for over four years. The ballet shoes were entered under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 6402.99.41 as oxford height footwear of the slip-on type, dutiable at 12.5%, though CBP liquidated them under subheading 6402.99.49, dutiable at 37.5%. Target, via its October 2021 complaint, laid out its case for the shoes to be classified under this first subheading (Target General Merchandise v. U.S., CIT #17-00007).
The Commerce Department had no legal grounds to find that Hyundai Steel Company received a countervailable benefit from the South Korean government's provision of port usage rights, Hyundai argued in a brief at the Court of International Trade. Commerce ignored its own standard over port usage rights that says that these rights can be countervailed only if the benefit were "excessive," the brief said. The port usage rights afforded to Hyundai were given as payment for a debt to Hyundai and thus not a countervailable benefit, Hyundai argued (Hyundai Steel v. U.S., CIT #21-00304).
The Court of International Trade in a July 27 order denied plaintiff Second Nature Designs' bid for a test case and suspension of another action at the trade court. Judge Gary Katzmann said that the U.S.'s opposition to the motion was denied as moot in light of the court's recent ruling in Cyber Power v. U.S., which found that the government does not have the legal authority to file a counterclaim in a customs case. Following the order, the two cases will continue separately (see 2207200052) (Second Nature Designs v. U.S., CIT #17-00271).
The Department of Commerce made multiple errors in calculating the duty margin in an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on antifriction bearings from China, Tainai said in a July 26 motion at the Court of International Trade (Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co., Ltd. and C&U Americans, LLC v United States, CIT #22-0038).
The Commerce Department violated the law by hitting consolidated antidumping duty respondents Apiario Diamante Comercial Esportadora and Apiario Diamante Producao e Comercial de Mel (collectively Supermel) with total adverse facts available, the respondent argued in a July 27 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce unlawfully used unaffiliated beekeepers to verify Supermel's data, despite the fact that Supermel was the mandatory respondent and not the beekeepers, the complaint said (Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora Ltda. v. United States, CIT #22-00185).
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 28 opinion held that CBP timely liquidated or reliquidated 10 entries of wooden bedroom furniture. The court ruled that the first clear indication that an injunction against liquidation had ended came from the Commerce Department liquidation instructions, which were sent within the six months prior to liquidation, making the liquidation of the entries timely. Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Kara Stoll ruled that the Court of International Trade was right to find in a separate case, which put in place the injunction on the 11 entries under dispute in the present action, didn't unambiguously end the injunction, resulting in a finding that CBP timely liquidated the entries. The judges further held that while one of the entries should have been labeled as being reliquidated because it was deemed liquidated by law, this error was harmless.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Byungmin Chae, who is contesting results of his customs broker license exam, filed his informal reply brief July 25 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Court of International Trade had dismissed five exam questions Chae appealed (see 2206060055). At the trade court, Judge Timothy Reif said CBP was right to dismiss Chae's appeal of four of the questions but said the agency wrongly denied the test taker's appeal for the fifth question. The reversal of the remaining question wasn't sufficient for a passing grade because Chae was two questions shy of the 75% threshold needed to pass the test. In his informal reply brief to the Federal Circuit, Chae said he is appealing only three questions from the April 2018 customs broker license exam (Byungmin Chae v. Secretary of the Treasury, CIT #20-00316).
The Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government does not subsidize the Korean steel industry through the sale of electricity below cost was illegal and gives foreign governments full control to cross-subsidize various industries, plaintiff Nucor Corp. argued in a July 26 brief at the Court of International Trade. Commerce has failed to lay out a legal or methodological justification for treating the "government price" as the revenues earned by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) on all sales to all firms, the brief said. By doing so, the agency did not look at the price actually paid by the respondent, meaning it has failed to assess whether a benefit was conferred, Nucor argued (Nucor Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00050).
The Court of International Trade should reject the Commerce Department's continued use of the Cohen's d test following a remand order from the court, plaintiffs, led by Marmen Inc., argued in a July 22 brief at the trade court. Commerce has failed to explain whether limits on the use of the test to detect masked dumping were satisfied with respect to Marmen's data, the brief said. Further, Commerce's premise -- that certain statistical assumptions such as the normal distribution of the data need not apply where the data sets are populations and not samples -- is not supported by anything, including the academic literature, the brief said (Marmen Inc. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-00169).