The Commerce Department adequately supported its decision to find that antidumping respondent Compania Valencia de Aluminio Baux and its affiliate, Bancolor Baux, only sold common alloy aluminum sheet in one level of trade in its home market of Spain, the Court of International Trade held on Sept. 25. Judge Mark Barnett said the relevant AD statute doesn't require Commerce to "recognize a distinct level of trade in connection with any differences in selling activities," finding the agency's level of trade regulations to comply with the AD laws.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on Sept. 23 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 22 signed off on the settlement of a customs penalty suit the U.S. brought against importer Katana Racing. Under the settlement, Katana agreed to pay $2.35 million to resolve the case, which involved $5.8 million in unpaid duties and penalties related to the company's tire imports (see 2509050067) (U.S. v. Katana Racing, CIT # 19-00125).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 23 directed the Court of International Trade to transfer a certain physical exhibit to the appeals court in importer Cozy Comfort's customs case on the classification of its oversized pullover, The Comfy. Cozy moved the Federal Circuit without opposition to transfer a physical sample of The Comfy and its retail packaging to the court so the sample is "available for inspection by this Court and the parties at oral argument" (Cozy Comfort v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1889).
The International Trade Commission "dodges" the substantive arguments made against its affirmative injury finding on Israeli brass rod and, instead, repeatedly asks the Court of International Trade to defer to its "flawed methodologies," the Israeli government's Ministry of Economy and Industry argued in a reply brief filed last week at the trade court (Government of Israel v. United States, CIT # 24-00197).
After the Court of International Trade’s remand of the Commerce Department’s countervailing duty review of Chinese-origin multilayered wood flooring (see 2504030070), the department maintained its decisions to both use a larger, less-specific dataset for calculating Tier II benchmarks over a smaller, more-specific one and to apply adverse facts available for the Chinese government’s refusal to provide government documents showing non-ownership (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00210).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 25 upheld the Lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs. CAFC Judges Todd Hughes and Alan Lourie, along with Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas, who was sitting by designation, said the tariffs were a valid exercise of the government's authority under Section 307(a)(1)(C), which lets the U.S. Trade Representative "modify or terminate any action" taken under Section 301, where such action is "no longer appropriate."
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 25 sustained CBP's finding that Blue Pipe Steel Center evaded the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand. While Blue Pipe consented to the application of the evasion determination to its goods after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the Commerce Department's scope ruling including its dual-stenciled pipe in the order, the company said the determination should run from the start of the scope inquiry and not the start of the evasion investigation. Judge Timothy Reif rejected this request, finding that the Enforce and Protect Act's lack of a "reasonable notice" requirement and the fact that the AD order had no clear exclusions warrants applying the evasion determination to the start of the investigation.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in a case on the 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from South Korea, in a confidential decision. Judge Mark Barnett gave the parties until Sept. 29 to review the confidential information in the decision. In the remand results, Commerce said the Korean government's full allotment of emissions permits under the Korean Emissions Trading System was de facto specific, switching its previous determination that the full allotment was de jure specific following a remand order from Barnett (see 2407310039). Opening the record on remand, the agency added new data to the record and, with this data, said 504 companies got the full 100% allotment of the permits and that over 787,000 companies operated in Korea in 2019, meaning the program can't be considered "widely used" throughout the economy (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00170).
CBP failed to explain its finding that Dominican exporter Kingtom Aluminio made its aluminum extrusions with forced labor, the Court of International Trade held on Sept. 23. Vacating and remanding the forced labor finding, Judge Timothy Reif said the agency failed to "articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action” based on a “rational connection between the facts found and the choice made" in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act's arbitrary and capricious standard.