The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 8 found that the Court of International Trade erred in rejecting the Commerce Department's exclusion of door thresholds imported by Worldwide Door Components and Columbia Aluminum Products from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judges Sharon Prost, Richard Linn and Todd Hughes said that Commerce adequately found on remand at the trade court that the door thresholds are subassemblies, barring them from being considered under the finished merchandise exclusion from the orders.
Court of International Trade activity
The U.S. and importer Roper Corp. settled a customs spat on the company's microwave ovens, with CBP agreeing to liquidate the goods without Section 301 duties (Roper Corp. v. United States, CIT # 22-00217).
Importers led by Tenaris Bay City sent comments to the Court of International Trade last week opposing the International Trade Commission's separate decisions to cumulate both Russian and South Korean oil country tubular goods with goods from Argentina and Mexico. Tenaris Bay argued that the ITC improperly interpreted the statute in defining the phrase "compete with," which "uses the present tense and thus denotes" that the goods in question must compete with the like product during the "months leading up to and including vote day" (Tenaris Bay City v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00344).
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 4 remanded the Commerce Department's decision to include certain products from exporter Tecnicas de Fluidos (TEFLU) within the scope of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Mexico in the 2020-21 review of the order. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce must answer whether TEFLU's "further manufactured products" are "downstream products" outside the order's scope. The agency must lay out "the degree to which" the exporter's goods were processed by various methods and whether each good was further processed, instead of basing its determination "solely on the physical and chemical composition" of the products. Choe-Groves added that Commerce must assess whether TEFLU's goods are within an industry investigated by the International Trade Commission in its corresponding injury analysis.
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 7 sent a customs classification dispute on truck steps to a bench trial after finding that the undisputed facts are insufficient for conducting a principal use analysis on whether the products are "side protective attachments." Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves held that while a Section 301 exclusion for "side protective attachments" is a principal use provision, and not a provision for an individual product, the court can't at this time properly assess the imports at issue under a principal use framework.
Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled Oct. 4 that the government hadn’t sufficiently responded to discovery requests by pistolmaker Glock, overruling a number of DOJ's objections and criticizing it for missing its interrogatory responses deadline.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 4 on AD/CVD proceedings:
There have been no lawsuits recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 3 stayed the briefing schedule in a trio of cases brought by exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) while it considers the company's motion to consolidate the three appeals. All three cases center on the sunset review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Turkey (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2242).
The United States said Sept. 30 that an Indian aluminum exporter was trying to “artificially separate two similar industries” in its attempt to avoid being assessed a countervailing duty for the provision of coal for less-than-adequate remuneration (Hindalco Industries Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00260).