Importer Shamrock Building Materials moved April 11 to throw out the testimony of a witness in a customs classification dispute, telling the Court of International Trade that the witness, Athanasios Meliopoulos, is "woefully incompetent." The plaintiff said that Meliopoulos isn't qualified to render an opinion on the only relevant question of the case -- whether the imported electrical conduit tubing is lined with insulating materials (Shamrock Building Materials v. United States, CIT #20-00074).
The Commerce Department's conclusion that Dominican manufacturer Kingtom Aluminio had exports subject to the antidumping duty order on aluminum extrusions from China based on CBP's Enforce and Protect Act investigation is an "abdication of its legal responsibility" to conduct administrative reviews, Kingtom said in an April 8 complaint. Taking its grievance to the Court of International Trade, Kingtom also said that the decision to find that the exporter had goods subject to the AD order based on adverse facts available is a due process violation (Kingtom Aluminio v. U.S., CIT #22-00072 to -00079).
The Court of International Trade, in an April 4 opinion made public April 12, sustained parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the 2017-2018 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China. Judge Claire Kelly upheld Commerce's pick of Malaysia as the primary surrogate country and the calculation of surrogate financial ratios. However, the judge remanded Commerce's decision to value silver paste using Malaysian import data, valuation of mandatory respondent Risen's ethyl vinyl acetate and backsheet, use of partial adverse facts available to value missing factor of production data and calculation of the separate rate.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available over antidumping duty respondent Euro SME's reporting of certain U.S. inland freight data was illegal, Euro said in an April 7 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The respondent filed the case to contest Commerce's final results in the 2019-2020 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on polyethylene retail carrier bags from Malaysia. Euro further challenged Commerce's decision to give only a partial credit for revenue associated with its U.S. movement expenses and the use of partial AFA over the reporting of certain home market freight data (Euro SME SDN Bhd v. U.S., CIT #22-00108).
The Commerce Department found on remand that antidumping duty respondent Power Steel Co. did not pay Section 232 duties on two entries of steel concrete rebar, dropping the duties paid as part of the exporter's sales price used to establish its base export price in an antidumping duty administrative review. Submitting its remand results to the Court of International Trade on April 8, Commerce lowered Power Steel's dumping margin from 3.27% to 0.01%, locking in a finding that Power Steel did not make sales at less than normal value (Power Steel Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #20-03771).
The Commerce Department granted a level-of-trade (LOT) adjustment for antidumping duty respondent Productos Laminados de Monterrey (Prolamsa) on remand at the Court of International Trade, reversing course from its previous position. Finding that the totality of evidence supports the position that Prolamsa made sales at two levels of trade, Commerce dropped Prolamsa's dumping rate from 7.47% to 0.89% (Productos Laminados de Monterrey S.A. de C.V. v. U.S., CIT #20-00166).
Three judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit probed the question of whether a group of U.S. steel companies, led by U.S. Steel Corp., could intervene in a spate of cases challenging the Commerce Department's decision to deny certain importers exclusions to Section 232 steel and aluminum duties. During an April 7 oral argument, Chief Judge Kimberly Moore and Judges Pauline Newman and Todd Hughes expressed serious doubt as to whether the steel companies could join the exclusion challenges (California Steel Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2172).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department erred in using an allocation method for Thai exporter Sahamitr Pressure Container's (SMPC) certification expenses that covered the whole period of review, SMPC said in an April 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. By doing so, Commerce violated its own practice of using the most detailed transaction-specific expense data and distorted the data, the exporter said (Sahamitr Pressure Container v. U.S., CIT #22-00107).