The U.S. defended the methodology it used to calculate the amount of supplier subsides attributable to exporters Les Produits Forestiers D&G and its cross-owned affiliates, led by Les Produits Forestiers Portbec, on remand in a case on the expedited countervailing duty review of Canadian softwood lumber. Filing remand comments on Nov. 15, the government said two alternative methodologies floated by the petitioner, the Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations, both fall short (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00122).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential decision Nov. 22 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the 2017-18 review of the antidumping duty order on aluminum foil from China. In the case, exporter Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials and the U.S. disagreed on selections for world benchmark prices for an input and for land purchases (see 2410280038). The exporter preferred an input price benchmark that was a composite of GlobalTrade Atlas data and Commodities Research Unit data, while Commerce went with Trade Data Monitor data (Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00133).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit scheduled oral argument for the massive litigation involving thousands of companies against the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 China tariffs. The argument will be held Jan. 8 at 10 a.m. EST in Courtroom 203 (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
A New York resident brought a complaint to the Court of International Trade Nov. 21 saying that several questions on CBP’s customs broker exam were unfairly ambiguous, conflicting or lacking essential information, resulting in his failure to pass it (Shuangyang Li v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CIT # 24-00205).
Congressional intent is not "frustrated" when duty drawback claims on entries that aren't liquidated "and become final" within one year of the drawback claim being made aren't deemed liquidated, the U.S. said in a Nov. 22 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 25 sustained the Commerce Department's third remand in a case on the antidumping duty investigation on beer kegs from China. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld Commerce's decisions not to reopen the record to use a Mexican consumer price index inflator to adjust Mexican surrogate wage information and to use Brazilian surrogate wage data. Baker said Commerce reasonably explained that it wasn't necessary to reopen the record to inflate the Mexican data when existing data from Brazil "suited the agency's purposes."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade reassigned a customs penalty action against California-based solar cell importer executive Paul Bakhoum from Judge Richard Eaton to Judge Stephen Vaden. The U.S. brought the suit in October, accusing Bakhoum of neglignece and seeking $776,250.51 in unpaid duties and damages (see 2410080051). Bakhoum worked as the vice president for solar cell importer Ecosolargy and is alleged to have made various errors when entering solar shipments during 2014-15. An attorney for the U.S. didn't respond to a request for comment on the case reassignment (U.S. v. Paul Bakhoum, CIT # 24-00188).
A Turkish rebar exporter Nov. 17 sought judgment in two old and two new challenges against the Commerce Department in the Court of International Trade (see 2407010038) (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #24-00096).
An importer of mastectomy bras filed Nov. 21 its motion for judgment in a 2020 case (see 2107140063) arguing that its bras should have been classified by CBP as parts or accessories for artificial body parts, not as “other brassieres of manmade fiber” (Amoena USA Corp. v. U.S., CIT #20-00100).