Importer Sun Ray Group and its owner, Jihua "Mike" Liu, face over $15 million in penalties for alleged fraud and lying on customs forms and underpayment duties on vegetable entries. A complaint at the Court of International Trade filed Dec. 6 by the DOJ says that Liu and Sun Ray avoided duties on 216 entries of dried and dehydrated garlic, onion and other vegetables, and also owe nearly $2 million in unpaid duties (United States v. Jihua "Mike" Liu, CIT #22-00330).
The U.S. cannot rely on the Commerce Department's post hoc rationalization of its decision to countervail glass subsidies in a countervailing duty review, plaintiff-appellants, led by Guangzhou Jangho Curtain Wall System Engineering Co., argued in a Dec. 5 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appellants also said that the government did not take new agency action in making its determination, showing a "kind of bait and switch decision-making" decried in a key Supreme Court case (Taizhou United Imp. & Exp. Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. 22-2000).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 8 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2016 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce properly dropped its imposition of CV duties on plaintiff Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. for China's Export Buyer's Credit Program and that the agency fixed errors found by the court in the case's last opinion related to Commerce's analysis of the provision of synthetic yarn and caustic soda below cost. On remand, the agency further explained that the provision of these two items for less than adequate remuneration met the specificity requirement of the law.
The Commerce Department properly dropped its reliance on an Enforce and Protect Act case to reject third-country sales in an antidumping duty review, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Dec. 6 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann upheld Commerce's remand results, which used respondent Z.A. Sea Food's (ZASF's) Vietnamese sales to calculate normal value in an AD review on Indian products. The domestic shrimp industry had argued Commerce should use constructed value because there is no evidence the shrimp sold in Vietnam was consumed by the Vietnamese customers. Katzmann waived the domestic industry's claims "due to the lack of adequate argument."
The Pacer court access system will undergo maintenance 6:55 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST Dec. 11, the Court of International Trade announced. "Users may experience intermittent issues when logging onto CM/ECF and when making payments through Pay.gov.," the court said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department's remand redetermination concerning an antidumping duty review on oil country tubular goods from South Korea still suffers from "legal and factual flaws" despite the correct conclusion that no particular market situation existed that distorted the costs of production, Nexteel said in its Dec. 2 comments to the Court of International Trade. Nexteel told the court that, due to what it sees as the correct conclusion, CIT should sustain the remand redetermination but should force Commerce to reconsider the PMS issue should it come up before the court in the future (Nexteel and Seah Steel v. U.S. and U.S. Steel CIT # 18-00083).
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The Court of International Trade on Dec. 6 upheld the Commerce Department's finding of no particular market situation for hot-rolled coil steel in an antidumping duty review on welded line pipe from South Korea. Judge Claire Kelly also upheld Commerce's decision to recalculate respondent Nexteel's costs without making a non-prime product adjustment and revise the non-examined companies' rate. However, the judge again remanded the agency's further explanation of its classification of Nexteel's suspended production line costs.
DOJ briefs in the massive Section 301 litigation don't demonstrate that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative considered "major objections contemporaneously with its decisions" to impose the lists 3 and 4A tariffs, the plaintiffs argued in a Dec. 5 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. While USTR relies on presidential direction as the post hoc justification of its decisions, the court already ruled that out as a means of satisfying the Administrative Procedure Act, the brief said. To now satisfy the APA, the U.S. may take new action, but the lists 3 and 4A tariffs may not stay in place based on "conclusory and post hoc rationales," the plaintiffs said (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT #21-00052).