Negative injury determinations that ended antidumping duty investigations on polyethylene terephthalate resin from Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan and Taiwan in 2018 will stand, after the Court of International Trade sustained a remand redetermination from the International Trade Commission that provided further explanation of the ITC’s decisions without any changes to the end result.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade remanded a trade adjustment assistance case back to the Labor Department after the agency denied a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees the aid. In a May 4 opinion, Judge M. Miller Baker found that Labor failed to discuss or even reference the union's evidence of why the trade adjustment assistance was warranted in its determination, warranting a remand for reconsideration of the agency decision. The former call center employees worked for AT&T at the Kalamazoo, Michigan, call center location and were let go following the telecommunications company's decision to relocate the jobs to Mexico, the Philippines and the Caribbean.
Truck and bus tire exporter Guizhou Tyre Co. cited a recent Court of International Trade opinion to argue that it should be given an individual dumping rate in an antidumping investigation of truck and bus tires from China, in an April 30 notice of supplemental authority. Drawing on CIT's April 29 opinion in Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. v. U.S. (see 2104300079), Guizhou claimed that an argument it made in its own case in CIT directly mirrors one accepted by the court about how de facto government control is determined by the Commerce Department.
The Commerce Department will no longer apply adverse facts available to the antidumping rate for an Indian shrimp exporter, it said in remand results filed May 4 (Calcutta Seafoods Pvt. Ltd. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00201). The filing follows a Feb. 3 Court of International Trade decision which found that Commerce did not aid a small, first-time mandatory respondent to an AD case enough and unlawfully applied AFA to the exporter (see 2102030006). Commerce will now use neutral facts available, leading the agency to drop frozen warmwater shrimp exporter Elque Group's dumping margin to 27.66% from 110.9%.
The Court of International Trade issued two decisions related to the application of adverse facts available in antidumping duty proceedings on solar cells from China and cold-rolled steel flat products from South Korea shipped through Vietnam.
Changes made to the Court of International Trade's rules and fees took effect on May 3, according to an earlier notice of the amendments. Alterations to CIT Rules 3, 5, 15, Form 20 and Administrative Order 02-01 are now in force along with changes in fees made to the Schedule of Fees, Rule 74 and Form 10. The attorney admission certificate fee for the original admission of an attorney to practice was raised to $88, from $81.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Tesla filed a lawsuit challenging the imposition of lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs on China, becoming the latest company to join the litigation involving more than 3,700 other cases. In an April 30 complaint filed with the Court of International Trade, Tesla, as an importer of goods subject to the Section 301 tariffs, launched its lawsuit, which will be subject to an automatic stay pursuant to a recent administrative order from the court (see 2104290048). The order pauses all filings challenging the tariffs that are not placed under the HMTX and Jasco Products test case.
The Department of Justice wants an entry of plywood imported from China scratched from a customs challenge in the Court of International Trade by BRAL Corporation, since the importer failed to file a protest against the entry's liquidation (BRAL Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 20-00154). In a May 3 memo in support of a partial motion to dismiss, DOJ said the entry, one of 12 in dispute in the case, was reliquidated twice by CBP as the agency attempted to sort out the antidumping and countervailing duties applicable to the plywood imports. Since BRAL did not protest the second reliquidation, yet challenges it in court anyway, the entry should be dismissed from the case for lack of jurisdiction, DOJ said.