CBP continued to find that three importers evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China on remand at the Court of International Trade, after providing the companies with access to the confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT # 20-03914).
The Commerce Department on remand at the Court of International Trade reduced the antidumping duty rate for respondent Meihua Group International Trading (Hong Kong) from 154.07% to zero percent in the 2019-20 review of the AD order on xanthan gum from China. The agency reviewed its use of adverse facts available against the company due to the exporter's explanation that its U.S. duties and Section 301 duties are "subject to a possible recalculation" (Meihua Group International Trading (Hong Kong) v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00069).
The Court of International Trade was wrong to rule that imported calendar planners should be classified by CBP as diaries instead of calendars, the importer said in its opening brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 24 (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).
The Court of International Trade last week remanded the Commerce Department's finding that Germany's Konzessionsabgabenverordnung (KAV) program, which exempts a fee for gas and power pipeline companies that sell electricity below a certain price point that would otherwise be passed onto consumers, wasn't a specific subsidy. Judge Claire Kelly sent the case back for the fourth time, finding that the agency must further investigate whether an alleged subsidy is de facto specific when facts give "reasons to believe" the subsidy may be de facto specific.
The U.S. on May 24 pushed back against a petitioner’s claim that the Commerce Department allowed an exporter too much leeway in the first antidumping duty review of forged steel fluid end blocks from Italy (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00191).
Lawyers gave feedback this week on recently issued Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty regulations, with at least one attorney saying the changes were mostly positive for petitioners. They also discussed challenges faced by different parties during International Trade Commission investigations, and they said they sided with the ITC in its ongoing defense of its treatment of confidential information at the Court of International Trade.
Importer Valeo North America told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the Commerce Department violated a "foundational principle of administrative law" in concluding the company's T-series aluminum sheet was covered by antidumping and countervailing duty orders. Commerce failed to follow its "well-established legal framework" in making the scope decision, neglecting its duty as an administrative agency to provide coherent, ascertainable guidance so that regulated parties may anticipate how agencies enforce their rules and regulations," Valeo said (Valeo North America v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1189).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said on May 20 that the Court of International Trade was wrong to impose a 50% threshold in determining whether demand for a processed agricultural product is "substantially dependent" on its raw upstream iteration for purposes of assigning countervailing duties.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Drawing pencils, colored pencils and #2 pencils exported from the Philippines by School Specialty are subject to an antidumping duty order on cased pencils from China, the Commerce Department said in a May 7 scope ruling.