Commerce incorrectly determined that discs, the inner structures of wheels, share the essential characteristics of wheels and are substantially the same products, an exporter said to the Court of International Trade in a Jan. 30 motion for judgment (Asia Wheel Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00143).
Importer Scottsdale Tobacco launched a case at the Court of International Trade to contest CBP's denial of its drawback claim on its Canadian-origin paper-wrapped cigarettes. Filing a complaint on Jan. 30, the importer said its drawback claim "met the requirements" for a substitution unused merchandise drawback of the federal excise taxes it paid, since it exported the cigarettes from Florida less than five years after the relevant imports (Scottsdale Tobacco v. United States, CIT # 24-00022).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 31 remanded for a third time the Commerce Department's use of Mexican wage data to calculate surrogate labor costs in the antidumping duty investigation on beer kegs from China. Judge M. Miller Baker said Commerce abused its discretion in rejecting Brazilian data, favored by petitioner American Keg, and continuing to use Mexican International Labour Organization data.
The following trade-related lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. and three importers filed a joint status report announcing they intend to settle several consolidated cases (see 2108190038) contesting the Commerce Department’s denials of the importers’ Section 233 steel tariff exclusion requests (Valbruna Slater Stainless.v. U.S., CIT #21-00027).
Exporter Oman Fasteners asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 29 to dismiss petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire's appeal of a Court of International Trade decision imposing an injunction on the Commerce Department's antidumping duty cash deposits on Oman Fasteners' steel nail imports. The exporter said the injunction is no longer active because the Commerce Department completed the next administrative review of the AD order, so there is no live controvery in the case (Oman Fasteners v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 31 remanded for a third time the Commerce Department's antidumping investigation on refillable stainless steel kegs from China, rejecting the agency's continued use of a Mexican data set to calculate a surrogate labor costs value for respondent Ningbo Master International Trade. Judge M. Miller Baker said Brazilian wage data already provided by petitioner American Keg was "correct as a factual matter," making Commerce's reopening of the record on remand to seek additional Mexican data unjustified.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 30 said that for drawback purposes the 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings should be read starting with their directly adjacent text and not the superior indented text. Judge Claire Kelly said the "plain meaning" of the statute governing substituted unused merchandise drawbacks refers to the "words describing the article adjacent to the 10-digit number."
The following trade-related lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Rebar Trade Action Coalition, a domestic petitioner and defendant-intervenor in a case recently decided in the Court of International Trade, announced Jan. 26 it will be filing an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It is seeking to overturn CIT’s holding that Turkish shipbuilding company and scrap metal supplier Nur Gemicilik ve Ticaret isn't a cross-owned input supplier of Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret, a rebar producer and countervailing duty respondent in the Commerce Department’s 2018 investigation of its products (see 2311270059). The decision meant that Commerce didn't have to attribute Nur’s government subsidies to Kaptan, which ultimately received a de minimis duty in the review (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT # 21-00565).