The Court of International Trade sustained remand results in an antidumping investigation over whether a sale of steel flanges from an Indian exporter should be excluded from the home market sales database when determining the antidumping duty margin.
Court of International Trade activity
Sections 301 and 232 tariffs have created greater exposure to trade-related False Claims Act allegations, Sidley Austin said in a May 10 analysis. Since President Donald Trump drastically increased CBP's workload via the tariffs, greater incentives now exist to skirt the tariffs through fraudulent activity such as transshipment or inappropriate country of origin analysis for imports. This incentive for fraudulent activity mirrors the ramped-up incentives for the FCA allegations by those seeking to obtain a financial award for calling out the illegal behavior, the firm said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Flooring importer FD Sales Company, LLC launched a challenge in the Court of International Trade claiming that CBP improperly denied some of its imports exclusions from Section 301 tariffs (FD Sales Company v. U.S., CIT # 21-00244). In a May 7 complaint, FD Sales said it brought in 49 entries of vinyl flooring, engineered wood flooring, “Aquaguard” wood flooring, tile saws and tile nippers on which it was granted exclusions from the Section 301 tariffs. The importer sought a refund of $671,442.81 in duties paid on the goods, of which $238,025.44 was granted by CBP. FD Sales claims that its imports were properly excluded from the additional duties “pursuant to exclusions to Section 301 granted by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.”
Steel exporters Universal Tube and Plastic Industries, along with THL Tube and Pipe Industries and KHK Scaffolding and Framework, say that the Commerce Department incorrectly determined that there was only a single level of trade in the home market, in an antidumping case on circular welded carbon-quality steel pipe from the United Arab Emirates. In a May 10 motion for summary judgment in the Court of International Trade, Universal argued that Commerce ignored substantial record evidence to the contrary, leading to an improper antidumping duty margin (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 20-03944).
Mexican steel exporter Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. says that since Section 232 tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum were made in violation of certain procedural requirements, they should not be deducted from the exporter's U.S. price when determining its antidumping margin. In a May 10 motion for summary judgment in a case at the Court of International Trade, Deacero also argued that since the tariffs are remedial and temporary, they are not ordinary customs duties and are thus excluded from antidumping duty calculations (Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. v. U.S., CIT # 20-03924).
The Court of International Trade on May 11 sustained on the second remand the Commerce Department’s 2016-17 antidumping duty administrative review on activated carbon from China. The trade court had twice ordered Commerce to reconsider its inclusion of certain data on Thai carbonized material imports from France to value Chinese inputs, noting that Commerce had rejected the data in previous reviews because they were small quantities of wood-based charcoal and had an average unit value much higher than the rest of the Thai data. While Commerce had stood its ground after the first remand, the agency reversed course under protest in its second remand redetermination and excluded the French data.
The Commerce Department flipped its affirmative antidumping and countervailing duty circumvention rulings on certain hardwood plywood products from China following remand instructions from the Court of International Trade. In its May 10 remand redetermination filing, Commerce reconsidered evidence it initially determined to be untimely submitted and found that certain hardwood plywood products were not developed after Dec. 8, 2016, AD/CVD orders (Shelter Forest International Acquisition Inc., et al. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00212). The hardwood plywood in question had three qualities: 1) contained face and back veneers of radiata or agathis pine, 2) had a Toxic Substances Control Act or California Air Resources Board label certifying compliance with TSCA/CARB requirements, and 3) was made with a resin, the majority of which is composed of urea-formaldehyde, polyvinyl acetate or soy.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices May 11 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: