The Court of International Trade should not allow the Commerce Department to apply the highest dumping margin possible by picking only one mandatory respondent in a "weight-averaging situation," plaintiffs, led by Kisaan Die Tech Private, argued in a June 30 motion for judgment. The highest possible rate of the one respondent, determined using adverse facts available, is not reflective of the cooperating respondents' dumping margin, and thus not backed by evidence or law, the plaintiffs said (Kisaan Die Tech Private Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #21-00512).
The Court of International Trade in a June 30 opinion upheld the Labor Department's decision to deny a group of former AT&T call center workers trade adjustment assistance, finding the department "(finally) gets it right" after two previous remand orders. In January, the case was remanded for a second time after Judge M. Miller Baker found that DOL failed to address whether AT&T's evidence was "satisfactory without statutory certification." The judge found Labor's answer to this question in its second remand results sufficient, holding the department adequately relied on AT&T's certified information showing it didn't shift call center services to a foreign country.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate June 28 in a case on the tariff classification of tobacco wraps. In its May decision, the appellate court affirmed the Court of International Trade's ruling, which allowed into evidence the results of a particular customs test used to weigh the tobacco wraps. Importer New Image Global filed the case to fight for a lower excise tax on its tobacco wraps, which were classified as roll-your-own tobacco, subjecting them to the excise tax (New Image Global v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #19-2444).
The Court of International Trade in a June 28 order consolidated four antidumping duty cases concerning whether the Commerce Department can use one antidumping mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit. The cases, brought by lead plaintiffs Hyundai Steel Co., AJU Besteel Co., Nexteel Co. and Husteel Co., all challenge the same final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea.
The Court of International Trade should rule that all 14 frozen fruit mixtures imported into the U.S. from Canada by Nature's Touch are properly classified under duty-free subheading 2106.90.98 as “Food preparations not elsewhere specified or included,” Nature's Touch said in a June 27 brief in support of its April 18 motion for summary judgment (see 2204190052) (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West). v. U.S., CIT #20-00131).
Importer Prime Time Commerce failed to exhaust its administrative remedies for its argument that the Commerce Department should look to confidential information to provide "gap-filling" data needed to calculate a rate separate from the China-wide dumping margin for the importer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a June 28 opinion. Sustaining the Court of International Trade, Judges Alan Lourie, Haldane Mayer and Tiffany Cunningham also ruled that while CIT and Commerce erred in not accepting Prime Time's submissions since it is an "interested party," the error was a harmless one.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade has the authority to order the Labor Department to certify that former AT&T call center employees are eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits, the former employees said in a June 23 brief. Responding to the court's request for further briefing on the issue of the court's authority, the plaintiffs said that the statutory text, purpose, history and practice all reveal that the court has doled out similar relief in the past and that the trade court can indeed issue the posited relief despite the lack of a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Former Employees of AT&T Services, Through Communications Workers of America Local 4123 v. United States, CIT #20-00075).
Plaintiffs in a countervailing duty case railed against the Commerce Department's reliance on adverse facts available over the CVD respondents' alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, filing a series of four separate briefs at the Court of International Trade. The plaintiffs, led by nonselected respondent Evolutions Flooring, argued that the use of AFA over the EBCP has been "consistently rejected under almost identical factual circumstances," and that Commerce was able to verify non-use of the program without certain information in a different CVD case (Evolutions Flooring v. United States, CIT #21-00591).