When it comes to the question of whether a countervailing duty respondent's U.S. customers used China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, "'No' means 'no,'" respondent Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. said in a June 3 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Yama said it fully answered whether this program was used by any of its customers and that should be enough for Commerce to verify non-use (Yama Ribbons and Bows Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00402).
The Commerce Department cannot countervail Vietnam's currency devaluation practices, exporter Kumho Tire (Vietnam) (KTV) said in a May 25 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The U.S.'s and the CVD petitioner's arguments to the contrary, particularly that currency devaluation is specific to exporters, ignore that Vietnamese exporters don't have to convert their U.S. dollar earnings into Vietnamese dong, the brief said (Kumho Tire (Vietnam) v. U.S., CIT #21-00397).
The Court of International Trade in a June 6 opinion dismissed customs broker license exam test taker Byungmin Chae's case contesting five questions on his broker exam. Judge Timothy Reif said that CBP was right to dismiss Chae's appeal for four of the contested questions but that the agency was wrong to dismiss the fifth appeal. However, the court's move to grant credit on this one question was not enough to get Chae over the 75% threshold needed to pass the test.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Defendant-appellees in an anti-circumvention case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit employ a "'pay no attention to what's behind the curtain' approach" as it relates to exporter Al Ghurair Iron & Steel's (AGIS) level of investment in the United Arab Emirates, AGIS argued in a June 1 brief. Replying to briefs from the U.S. and petitioner Steel Dynamics, AGIS said the appellees failed to show why enough evidence backs the Commerce Department's value-added calculations to justify the use of an unreasonable investment comparison methodology or to show that Commerce's disregard of numerous patterns of trade was reasonable (Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1199).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a confidential June 1 opinion dismissed a challenge from Turkish steel exporter Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret seeking the reversal of its denied Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests. In a letter to the litigants, Judge Timothy Reif said that the parties have until June 8 to review the bracketed confidential information and the remainder of the opinion to see if anything else should be redacted from the public versions. The U.S. originally moved to toss the case since the subject entries are not liquidated, and Borusan filed the case under Section 1581(a), which requires a protestable decision to occur before such a claim can be made (see 2108260062). In a public judgment, Reif sided with the U.S., dismissing the case (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT #21-00186).
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion, Hitachi Energy USA v. U.S., appeared in two antidumping duty cases as a supplemental authority, according to two notices at the Court of International Trade. The May 24 opinion said the Commerce Department improperly used adverse facts available over a respondent's reporting of service-related revenue. The court ruled that Commerce's change of methodology and later finding that the respondent failed to provide all the required sales data in the right form cut against the statutory requirement to provide notice and opportunity to remedy a deficiency (see 2205240028). The appellate court said that Commerce has no right to use AFA unless the respondent has failed to provide the requested information after being notified of the deficiency.
Gun sight inserts that use tritium for powerless illumination in low light conditions should be classified in Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9022 as apparatus that use beta radiation, rather than in heading 9405 as non-electrical lamps, importer Trijicon said in a complaint filed May 31 at the Court of International Trade. Despite a ruling issued by CBP to the contrary, Trijicon said heading 9022 covers apparatus that use beta radiation regardless of end use, and that the use of beta radiation is more specific for tariff classification purposes and harder to satisfy than lamp (Trijicon Inc. v. United States, CIT # 22-00040).
Arguments from plaintiff-appellants in an antidumping duty case, led by Carbon Activated Tianjin Co., are merely a bid to have the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit impermissibly re-weigh the record evidence over surrogate value questions, defendant-appellees Calgon Carbon Corp. and Norbit Americas argued in a May 31 reply brief. Also filing its reply brief was DOJ, arguing that the Commerce Department properly picked Malaysia over Romania as the primary surrogate country (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. Ltd. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1298).