Importer Trimil voluntarily dismissed 17 customs cases at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 27. The company brought the cases to challenge CBP's decision to appraise its apparel imports at the prices paid with royalties included (see 2112150046). Counsel for the importer said the cases were settled with CBP (Trimil v. U.S., CIT #s 05-00443, 05-00677, 06-00145, 06-00295, 07-00004, 07-00235, 07-00416, 08-00110, 08-00309, 09-00117, 09-00328, 09-00539, 10-00202, 10-00378, 11-00155, 11-00418, 12-00383).
Exporters led by Bio-Lab argued that the statute concerning surrogate value selection requires the Commerce Department to balance the importance of both economic and merchandise comparability rather than elevating one factor over the other. Filing a reply brief earlier this month at the Court of International Trade, Bio-Lab said that the court should find this to be the "best" reading of the statute, 19 U.S.C. 1677b(c), under the standard of review for ambiguous statutes established by the Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Bio-Lab v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 24-00024).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department reasonably said importer Cambridge Isotope Laboratories' enriched isotope compounds fit under the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on ammonium sulfate from China, the government argued in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The importer's 15N-enriched ammonium sulfate should have been included under the orders since the orders cover ammonium sulfate in all "physical forms," the government said (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories v. United States, CIT # 23-00080).
In response to a Georgia woman’s claim that the customs broker license exam “lacked sufficient information” on four questions, resulting in her failure to pass (see 2402160040), the U.S. said the woman was “entirely incorrect” regarding the questions’ ambiguity (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).
Congress didn't give the Commerce Department authority to deviate from certain principles associated with anti-circumvention proceedings whenever it thinks the effectiveness of an AD/CVD measure has been threatened "by changes in manufacturing methods or supply chains," Solar cell exporter BYD (H.K.) Co. argued. Filing a reply brief last week with the Court of International Trade, BYD said Congress laid out only a "very limited number of specific manufacturing scenarios" that can be deemed "circumvention" (BYD (H.K.) Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00221).
Aluminum extrusions exporter Kingtom Aluminio, which operates out of the Dominican Republic, brought a complaint to the Court of International Trade on Dec. 23 to challenge CBP’s finding that the exporter had used forced labor (Kingtom Aluminio v. U.S., CIT # 24-00264).
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 26 upheld the Commerce Department's finding that Germany's Konzessionsabgabenverordnung (KAV) program, which exempts from a fee gas and power pipeline companies that sell electricity below a certain price, isn't de facto specific and so isn't countervailable. Judge Claire Kelly approved Commerce's use of facts otherwise available to find "the recipients were too numerous to render" the program de facto specific.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Exporter Teh Fong Min (TFM) International Co. filed a brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last week adopting the government's defense of its decision to revoke the antidumping duty orders on stilbenic optical brightening agents from China and Taiwan after no interested domestic party filed a notice of intent to participate in sunset reviews on the orders (Archroma U.S. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-2159).