Importer Kyocera Document Solutions America will get refunds on Section 301 duties paid for its printer maintenance kits that were granted a tariff exclusion by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The importer filed a stipulated judgment at the Court of International Trade on an agreed set of facts, which say that the maintenance kits, liquidated under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8443.99.2050 and assessed Section 301 tariffs under secondary subheading 9903.88.01, fit under the exclusion.
CBP's remand results in an antiumping and countervailing duty evasion case should be sent back again since the agency "failed to provide any reasoned explanation for its treatment of confidential information or for the public summarization of such information," plaintiff Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Enforcement Committee said in a Jan. 3 brief at the Court of International Trade (Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Enforcement Committee v. United States, CIT # 21-00129).
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The Commerce Department illegally failed to give exporter Goodluck India a chance to request a review after it was reinstated as subject to an antidumping duty order, Goodluck argued in a Jan. 3 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. After the trade court settled a jurisdictional issue in the case, the exporter in a new motion for judgment argued that Commerce violated the law by assessing duties at the adverse facts available rate and deciding that the AFA cash deposit rate became effective on Sept. 10, 2021 -- 10 days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit provisionally revoked the order as to Goodluck (Goodluck India Limited v. United States, CIT # 22-00024).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 20 opinion made public Jan. 4 upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China. In the remand results, Commerce dropped its use of partial adverse facts available for unreported factors of production data, reverting to neutral facts available, and changed how it values silver paste using Malaysian surrogate data. The agency maintained positions previously sent back by the trade court on how to value backsheets and ethyl vinyl acetate using surrogate data, offering new explanations now to Judge Claire Kelly's liking.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Dec. 29 order granted the U.S. motion for leave to file a motion to dismiss an Enforce and Protect Act appeal to the extent the motion must be filed within 14 days. The U.S. asked for leave to file the motion seeing as all the entries at issue have been liquidated (Royal Brush Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1226).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Dec. 30 order gave plaintiff-appellants in a countervailing duty case a two-week extension to file their opening brief, setting the due date at Jan. 17. The appellants, Tau-Ken Temir, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration, and Tau-Ken Samruk, requested the extension -- the second of its kind for the opening brief -- since their counsel, Peter Koenig of Squire Patton, got hit with "two new unanticipated large questionnaire responses due at the" Commerce Department and "two new briefs due at" CIT since the first extension request. Koenig said more time is needed to coordinate a single brief among the three appellants, especially given that one is a foreign government agency (Tau-Ken Temir v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The Commerce Department illegally ignored its established practice of not reviewing the countervailability of a program in the absence of new information and its "consistent finding" in all past countervailing duty reviews that no benefit was provided from respondent KG Dongbu Steel Co.'s first three debt-equity swaps, Dongbu argued in a Dec. 27 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (KG Dongbu Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00047).
The Commerce Department illegally expanded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China by "reading ambiguity into the scope language when there is none," plaintiffs Vietnam Finewood, Far East American and Liberty Woods International argued in a Dec. 29 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The scope language clearly states there is only one category of in-scope product -- hardwood and decorative plywood -- although the U.S. says there are two general types -- hardwood and decorative plywood and certain veneered panels -- though the latter category is "not in the scope language at all," the plaintiffs said (Vietnam Finewood Company Limited v. U.S., CIT Consol. #22-00049).