The Government of India and exporter Balkrishna Industries replied to petitioner Titan Tire Corp.'s arguments against the Commerce Department's finding that Balkrishna didn't use or benefit from India's Advanced Authorization Scheme in the 2021 countervailing duty review on new pneumatic off-the-road tires from India. The Indian government said neither Commerce nor the petitioner had reason to doubt the fact that Balkrishna hadn't benefited from the program, while Balkrishna argued that the Indian government properly verified the information at issue (Titan Tire Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00233).
The Supreme Court's holding in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which eliminated the concept of deferring to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, "does not affect" the Court of International Trade's review of the differential pricing analysis, the U.S. argued in a Feb. 14 brief (Government of Canada v. United States, CIT # 23-00187).
Dicycles with electric motors and gyroscopic balancing technology, marketed and known as "hoverboards," are "chidren's cycles" and not "bicycles," importer GoLabs, doing business as GOTRAX, argued in a Feb. 14 complaint at the Court of International Trade. As a result, the importer argued that the hoverboards fit under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9503.00.0090 and not subheading 8711.60.0050 as classified by CBP (GoLabs Inc. v. United States, CIT # 25-00003).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 18 sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in a case on the antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Indonesia. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves upheld the agency's exclusion of in-transit mattresses from Indonesia in calculating constructed export price. The judge also upheld the agency's exclusion of respondent PT. Zinus Global Indonesia's parent company's selling expenses from the calculation of normal value (PT. Zinus Global Indonesia v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00277).
Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves again remanded the results of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty review of Chinese-origin multilayered wood flooring. Choe-Groves questioned whether the department’s decisions during the review were “results-driven or cherry-picking” because the department, instead of reopening the record to correct erroneous surrogate value information, still insisted on simply removing a month of bad data -- resulting in a surrogate value inflation of 453% (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00190).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade said in a text-only order that it "intends to consolidate" the nine cases challenging the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on aluminum extrusions from China and the nine cases challenging the countervailing duty investigation on the same product if no party objects by Feb. 19. All cases were assigned to Judge Mark Barnett last week. The judge said he set the Feb. 19 date so that only one administrative record needed to be filed in the consolidated action.
The Solar Energy Industries Association urged the Court of International Trade to not allow CBP to reliquidate entries of solar panels that were subject to a preliminary injunction from CIT, saying during oral arguments this week that there's not a strong enough reason to reverse CBP's inadvertent liquidation. The U.S. argued that a court order was needed to "effectuate" the court's suspension of liquidation and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in the case (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, CIT #20-03941).
Litigants in a lawsuit on a drawback claim told the Court of International Trade in a joint status report that they don't believe the case is "amenable to mediation," though they said they are discussing whether the suit can be settled through a "stipulated judgment on agreed statement of facts." The plaintiff, individual importer Timothy Brown, said he gave the U.S. a "proposed stipulated judgment," which the U.S. is reviewing (Timothy Brown v. United States, CIT # 20-03733).
Japanese exporter Nippon Steel argued Feb. 7 that the standard that respondents comply with antidumping and countervailing duty reviews to the best of their ability doesn’t require respondents to break their own governments’ laws (Nippon Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00533).