A vehicle accessories exporter's products are “steps bars,” as demonstrated by their usual industry use, designs and marketing, not “side protective attachments,” as the exporter claims, the government said Feb. 16 at the Court of International Trade (Keystone Automotive Operations v. U.S., CIT # 21-00215).
Georgia woman Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois filed suit at the Court of International Trade Feb. 16 to contest six questions on the October 2021 customs broker license exam. In her complaint, Stoute-Francois said that after appealing the test results to the Treasury Department, she was left just short of the 75% grade needed to pass the test, failing at 73.75% (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 remanded the Commerce Department's finding that R210-S engines made by Chongqing Rato Technology Co. fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc from China. Exporter Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. argued the R210-S engines have a newly designed horizontal shaft engine outside the orders' scope, while the U.S. said the horizontal shaft engine was equivalent to a modified vertical shaft engine, falling within the orders' scope. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce's claim that the orders don't include an exhaustive list of the parts needed for an engine to be covered cuts against "well-established legal precedent regarding scope rulings," and that the agency improperly relied on Wikipedia articles -- an "inherently unreliable source."
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 16 said that importer Trijicon's tritium-powered gun sights are properly classified under CBP's preferred Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading of 9405.50.40 as lamps "or other lighting fittings," dutiable at 6%, instead in subheading 9022.29.80 as "apparatus based on the use of alpha, beta or gamma radiations," free of duty, as argued by Trijicon. Judge Mark Barnett said the tritium-powered products don't qualify as an "apparatus" under either of the definitions offered by Trijicon and the U.S. because they meet the "common definition of a device," given that they are made for a particular purpose: illumination.
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 sustained the Commerce Department’s application of the Transactions Disregarded Rule to calculate mattress exporter Zinus Indonesia’s normal value in an AD investigation. However, it remanded Commerce’s decision, in constructing Zinus Indonesia’s export price, to apply a quarterly financial ratio to the mattresses of Zinus’ U.S. affiliate that were still in transit at the end of the period of review; doing so was using facts otherwise available, the court said, and Commerce should have first asked Zinus Indonesia for the relevant missing information. CIT also granted Commerce a voluntary remand on its decision to exclude Zinus Korea’s selling expenses from Zinus Indonesia’s constructed value so that the department could consider more evidence that the Korean affiliate helped Zinus Indonesia sell its products (PT. Zinus Global Indonesia v. U.S., CIT # 21-00277).
A U.S. motion to dismiss an importer's challenge of the way CBP handled liquidation after a prior disclosure amounts to a “mischaracterization” of its complaint, and the Court of International Trade also had jurisdiction over the case pursuant to the Customs Courts Act of 1980, the importer said (Larson-Juhl US v. U.S., CIT # 23-00032).
In Feb. 13 remand comments filed in the Court of International Trade, a domestic petitioner said that CIT erred in its ruling remanding a Moroccan phosphate fertilizer exporter’s CVD determination and that this forced the Commerce Department to incorrectly recalculate the exporter’s costs (The Mosaic Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00116).
CBP on Feb. 15 reversed its finding that importer Columbia Aluminum Products evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00185).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 15 said companies that submit requests for administrative review in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings can intervene as a matter of right at the Court of International Trade.
Certain types of electrical conduit fittings imported from China are not subject to an antidumping duty order on certain malleable iron pipe fittings from that country, the Commerce Department said in a Feb. 8 scope ruling.