Country of origin cases

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit again rejected the Coalition of Freight Coupler Producers' bid to redact 180 unique words in its reply brief in an attorney conflict-of-interest suit. Judge Alan Prost said most of the information the coalition is seeking to redact was made publicly available in the Court of International Trade proceeding, and said information relating to the terms of an engagement agreement the coalition sought to redact was "disclosed without objection" in importer Amsted Rail's opening and reply briefs (Amsted Rail Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

World Trade Organization members negatively affected by national security-related trade restrictions may be able to impose retaliatory measures as a way to address the U.S. gripe with the body's review of national security issues, former Office of the U.S. Trade Representative counsel Warren Maruyama and former WTO deputy director-general Alan Wolff said. In a working paper released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Maruyama and Wolff propose a compromise to the U.S. position that national security claims are nonreviewable.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The International Trade Commission didn't properly consider the "unprecedented conditions" of competition during the period of review in its investigation on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Argentina and Mexico, which led to "erroneous volume, price, and impact determinations, Tenaris Bay City and consolidated plaintiffs from two other cases said in a May 22 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Tenaris Bay City, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00344).

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

Trailer wheels manufactured by Asia Wheel in Thailand using discs and rims produced in Thailand from steel plates from China or a third country are not subject to the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain steel wheels 12 to 16.5 inches in diameter from China, the Commerce Department said in a scope ruling issued in April.

The Court of International Trade on May 22 upheld the Commerce Department's finding that both Guizhou Tyre Co. (GTC) and Double Coin Holdings failed to rebut the presumption of Chinese government control in the antidumping duty investigation on truck and bus tires from China. Despite Commerce's "inartful and internally-inconsistent approach" to the question of whether a company majority-owned by a government entity could ever prove to be free of government control, Judge Timothy Stanceu said the agency did enough to show that Double Coin did not pick its managers independently of the government-owned shareholder.

The Court of International Trade appeared in a May 22 decision to sympathize with the idea that the Commerce Department should have taken into account a cooperative China-wide exporter's own data to recalculate the China-wide rate in an antidumping review, but ultimately the court declined to remand for a recalculation because the exporter had requested a remand to make it a separate rate respondent, not to review the China-wide entity.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The Commerce Department should have at least allowed Japanese steel exporter Tokyo Steel to participate in an antidumping review on hot-rolled steel flat products from Japan as a voluntary respondent, importer Optima Steel International said in a May complaint at the Court of International Trade, arguing Commerce improperly chose only one respondent in the review (Optima Steel International v. U.S., CIT # 23-00108).