The Court of International Trade on Jan. 16 rejected the Commerce Department's finding that importer Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said CBP's final evasion determination and administrative review of the final decision contained "multiple errors, both of fact and of law." For instance, CBP pointed to no evidence showing that Columbia received aluminum door thresholds from China, transshipped the thresholds from China through Vietnam or falsely declared the country of origin as Vietnam instead of China. Stanceu added that CBP erroneously relied on a 2019 anti-circumvention proceeding, which applies only to aluminum extrusions exported from Vietnam made from aluminum previously extruded in China.
The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's decision to accept antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners' supplemental questionnaire response after initially rejecting it for being submitted 16 minutes late. Judge M. Miller Baker, in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16, nodded to his prior opinion in the case, in which he held that the rejection of the submission was "the very definition of abuse of discretion" (see 2307170036). The result was a zero percent dumping margin for the exporter.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Steel nail importer Hilti dismissed its case at the Court of International Trade following the Supreme Court's decision not to review a case on President Donald Trump's expansion of Section 232 duties onto steel and aluminum "derivative" products. The high court's decision marked the sixth time the court has declined to address whether Trump legally expanded the duties beyond procedural deadlines (see 2401080037). Hilti stayed its case pending resolution of the case rejected by the Supreme Court (Hilti, Inc. v. United States, CIT # 21-00216).
A frozen fruit importer appealed Jan. 11 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit seeking to overturn the Court of International Trade’s May 30 ruling that 14 types of its fruit mixtures should be classified as “other” frozen fruits, not “food preparations not elsewhere specified,” under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2093).
The U.S. asked the Court of International Trade on Jan. 9 to bar a wristwatch importer from using any materials the importer provided the government in its supplement to a document production request, saying it had been untimely (Ildico Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 18-00136).
The U.S. and antidumping duty petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition defended the Commerce Department's decision to weight average, or "smooth," respondent Marmen's steel plate costs in the AD investigation on utility scale wind towers from Canada (Marmen v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1877).
An Italian tire company had not adequately proven it wasn't controlled by the Chinese government, especially as substantial evidence existed to the contrary, the U.S. said Jan. 5 in response to the exporter’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Pirelli Tyre v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2266).
The Commerce Department swapped its use of partial adverse facts available for partial neutral facts available for antidumping duty respondent Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. after admitting that it isn't able to determine whether Tainai has "sufficient control over its suppliers to induce their cooperation" (Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00038).
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results reversing the use of adverse facts available against exporter Oman Fasteners for filing submitted 16 minutes late. The result is a zero percent margin for the company as part of the sixth antidumping review on steel nails from Oman. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld Commerce's use of Oman Fasteners' quarterly costs and not annual costs in calculating the company's cost of production, as well as its decision not to deduct Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from the U.S. price for all of Oman's entries.