Litigants in a pair of cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit jumped on the U.S. Supreme Court's move last week to axe the principle of agency deference when interpreting ambiguous statutes (see 2406280051). In notices of supplemental authority, two importers told the appellate court that the Court of International Trade relied on the now-defunct Chevron deference standard.
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 10 that the Court of International Trade correctly found that sales between Canada-based Midwest-CBK and its U.S. customers met the requirement of being sold "for exportation into the United States" and thus were properly liquidated using transaction value with a 75.75% "uplift" to the goods' valuation. Goods are meant for export to the U.S. when they are "clearly destined for the United States at the time of the sale," which the goods at issue were, the government said (Midwest-CBK v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1142).
The Chevron doctrine will almost certainly be overturned soon by the Supreme Court, leaving the path forward for judicial deference unclear, panelists said at Georgetown University Law Center’s 45th Annual International Trade Update.
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A domestic petitioner April 19 supported the U.S. in a case involving an antidumping duty investigation on freight rail couplers, saying that the case’s plaintiff, an exporter, had misunderstood the rules of statutory interpretation. That exporter has argued that the Commerce Department is barred from beginning new investigations fewer than two years before a previous one was completed (see 2404080049), pointing to statutory language governing changed circumstances reviews that appears to apply broadly (Wabtec Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00161).
Chinese exporter Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to "re-visit and question" the Commerce Department's basis for its non-market economy policy in antidumping duty proceedings. The exporter noted that the policy "has reigned for over twenty years without serious legal challenge," arguing that the appellate court has never directly reckoned with the policy's legality and that it's "high time" for such a review (Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2245).
The U.S. on April 5 rejected an importer’s claim that, based on the legislation governing changed circumstances reviews, the Commerce Department may not begin any new antidumping or countervailing duty investigations on a product within two years of the prior one (Wabtec Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00160, -00161).
The Court of International Trade on March 18 said that the U.S. waited too long to send surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. a bill for an unpaid customs bond on Chinese garlic imports that entered in 2004. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the government's eight-year delay in demanding the payment from Aegis "was unreasonable and a breach of contract." The court said the delay broke the "reasonable time requirement" -- an "implied contractual term."
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Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during a March 7 oral argument prodded various statutory interpretations of U.S. countervailing duty law as it pertains to finding whether demand for a good is "substantially dependent" on an upstream product for purposes of assigning countervailing duties. If substantial dependence is established, Commerce may attribute subsidies to a raw agricultural grower to a later stage producer.