CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act investigation and said it has reasonable suspicion that Kings Marble and Granite, Musa Stone Import, and KMG Marble and Granite evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China. The agency said this finding made the enactment of interim measures necessary.
Country of origin cases
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated March 15-18 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):
Christopher Curran, litigation partner at White & Case, has joined a scope case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of Japanese exporter Sigma Corp., according to a March 18 order from the appellate court. The suit was originally brought by manufacturer Vandewater International on whether its steel branch outlets fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings from China (see 2306020065). Curran joins trade lawyers Lucius Lau, Ron Kendler and Walter Spak in representing Sigma (Vandewater International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1093).
An exporter argued March 6 to the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department failed to justify allocating one of the exporter’s expenses across the entire period of review instead of on a more specific monthly basis. The department is required to use an allocation method that is as specific as possible, it said (Sahamitr Pressure Container PLC v. U.S., CIT # 22-0107).
Certain types of circular welded non-alloy steel pipe exported from the U.S. to Mexico for reprocessing and subsequent re-importation are not covered by the antidumping duty order on Mexican standard pipe, the Commerce Department said in a March 13 scope ruling. The products’ country of origin is the U.S., not Mexico, the department said.
The Court of International Trade will ask parties in an oral argument in Section 1581(i) action set for March 20 if antidumping and countervailing duties can ever violate the 8th Amendment as an excessive fine if they are legally calculated. Issuing questions ahead of the argument, Judge Mark Barnett also asked about when exactly importer Greentech Energy Solutions was injured when its solar cell entries were assessed AD/CVD (Greentech Energy Solutions v. United States, CIT # 23-00118).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated March 12 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):
In a March 8 brief, antidumping and countervailing duty petitioners argued that their case raises an “important issue of first impression for this Court” because it asks whether CBP’s Office of Rulings and Regulations is allowed to reverse evidence-based evasion determinations made at the conclusion of CBP Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate investigations (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. U.S., CIT # 23-00140).
The language of AD/CVD orders on steel wheels from China doesn't prevent the Commerce Department from conducting a substantial transformation analysis on wheels that only have one Chinese-origin component out of two, the U.S. said in a March 8 brief opposing a plaintiff’s motion for judgment (Asia Wheel v. U.S., CIT # 23-00096).
In oral arguments March 7, Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif heard the government’s and exporters’ arguments in a case regarding an administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. The review’s final results were based on the calculated rate of only one respondent after it was discovered selection of the other was based on an error by the Commerce Department (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. U.S., CIT # 20-03885).