Importers do not need to file protests as a prerequisite for gaining refunds on excluded Section 301 duties, Environment One Corporation said in a complaint filed April 15 with the Court of International Trade. The complaint asks the court to order refunds of Section 301 duties on entries that were "ordered retroactively excluded" from the China 301 duties and to declare the government's requirement that importers seek refunds via protest to be in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Protest Statute itself.
The Commerce Department and the Court of International Trade properly held that China Custom Manufacturing's solar panel mounts do not qualify for the finished goods exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, DOJ argued in an April 18 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. CCM, along with importer Greentec Engineering, ask Commerce to apply an outdated interpretation of the exclusion that doesn't consider key precedent from the Federal Circuit, the U.S. said (China Custom Manufacturing v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1345).
The Commerce Department continued to rely on adverse facts available in a countervailing duty case on remand at the Court of International Trade, holding that respondent Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi failed to act to the best of its ability when providing certain information about a Turkish government subsidiary. While it dropped AFA over Celik Halat's Section III of the initial CVD questionnaire, as instructed by the court, the agency still used AFA over Celik Halat's failure to respond to the Standard Questions Appendix of the Tax Program Appendix for the subsidy (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi A.S. v. U.S., CIT #21-00050).
The Commerce Department did not properly support its conclusion that it couldn't use antidumping respondent Z.A. Sea Foods Private Limited's (ZASF) Vietnamese sales to calculate normal value, the Court of International Trade ruled in an April 19 opinion. The case concerns a review of the AD order on frozen warm water shrimp from India in which Commerce rejected using ZASF's Vietnamese data for constructed value despite it being the largest market for the respondent's third country sales. The court said that Commerce's reliance on CBP's antidumping evasion determination on Vietnamese shrimp which did not involve ZASF cannot stand as a basis to reject the data. However, the court did uphold the agency's decision to not apply a knowledge test to its assessment of potential third country markets.
The Court of International Trade in an April 19 opinion sustained parts and remanded parts of the Commerce Department's final results of the 2017-2018 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded line pipe from South Korea. Judge Claire Kelly sustained Commerce's decision to cap respondent SeAH's freight revenue. The judge remanded, however, the agency's particular market situation determination and adjustment methodology, use of a PMS adjustment to SeAH's home market sales for the sales-below-cost test, denial of a constructed export price offset for SeAH, reallocation of respondent NEXTEEL's suspended loss and non-prime product costs and separate rate calculation.
The Commerce Department reasonably found that exporter Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co.'s tires did not qualify for a scope exclusion for light truck spare tires despite the petitioner agreeing to include specific exclusion language for Cheng Shin's tires, DOJ said in an April 13 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The exclusion requires that the tires be designed and marketed exclusively as temporary use spare tires for light trucks, and enough evidence sits on the record showing that this wasn't the case for Cheng Shin, the brief said (Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00398).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 14 granted a bid from plaintiffs-appellants Deacero and Deacero USA to stay the briefing schedule in an antidumping duty challenge, pending the results of a related matter. Both cases concern whether the Commerce Department can deduct Section 232 duties from an antidumping duty respondent's U.S. price in the dumping margin calculations (Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1486).
The Commerce Department slashed antidumping duties for exporter BlueScope Steel from 99.20% to 4.95% after dropping its reliance on adverse facts available, on remand at the Court of International Trade in an April 14 submission. After issuing a supplemental questionnaire to BlueScope during remand proceedings and accepting the exporter's quantity and value data, Commerce said that AFA was no longer warranted (BlueScope Steel Ltd. v. United States, CIT #19-00057).
The Court of International Trade ordered in an April 15 opinion that exporter Oman Fasteners shall make duty deposits for potential Section 232 steel and aluminum duty liability on all entries affected by its case challenging the validity of certain Section 232 duties. Oman Fasteners requested that the court should establish and administer an escrow account throughout the stay period pending an appeal of the court's decision. A three-judge panel said that the court was not convinced that setting up an escrow account is better than depositing estimated Section 232 duties for affected entries.
The U.S. was granted a voluntary remand in an antidumping duty and countervailing duty evasion case at the Court of International Trade. In its motion requesting the remand, CBP told the court that a remand is needed in light of arguments by the plaintiffs that the evasion finding is based on insufficient evidence. In particular, DOJ said that CBP needed to address logistical gaps in the feasibility of an alleged transshipment scheme and criticism of perceived inconsistencies in the materials submitted by the importers and the company accused of transshipping. Each of the three plaintiffs' counsel consented to the move (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00198).