The Commerce Department reversed its decision to collapse two mandatory respondents and one of their affiliates in an antidumping duty investigation. In a bid to bring its stance in line with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Commerce said in Feb. 14 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade that evidence to collapse all three entities was insufficient, particularly because evidence from the two mandatory respondents didn't show any common ownership. The agency also reinstated its use of adverse facts available over one of the respondents' reporting of its products' yield strength (Prosperity Tieh Enterprise Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #16-00138).
The Commerce Department erred when it found that Al Ghurair Iron & Steel LLC circumvented the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on corrosion-resistant steel products (CORE) from China via the United Arab Emirates, AGIS said in its Feb. 14 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1199).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department complied with the Court of International Trade's remand instructions when it found that certain door thresholds qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the Justice Department said in a pair of Feb. 14 reply briefs. Filing its responses in two separate cases, one brought by Columbia Aluminum Products and the other by Worldwide Door Components, Commerce said that it relied on CIT's rulings to find that the plaintiffs' door thresholds qualified for the finished merchandise exclusion while ignoring prior authorities that established that a subassembly could not qualify for the exclusion (Worldwide Door Components v. United States, CIT #19-00012) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00013).
Aida and the Department of Justice are seeking testimony from three Italian employees of Aida who possess specialized knowledge required in an ongoing case at the Court of International Trade concerning the proper value of six industrial stamping presses, they said in a joint request to Judge Stephen Vaden asking him to issue an order appointing a commissioner authorized to take testimony in Italy and to issue a Letter of Request to Aida's and DOJ's local counsels in Italy. In its initial complaint, Aida claimed that CBP liquidated two entries based on incorrect appraisal by Aida's customs broker in 2015. Aida challenged the appraised value of the items via a protest, which was denied in 2018. In order to move forward with the case, both Aida and DOJ agree that testimony regarding the value of the imported presses is required.
The Court of International Trade granted Turkish steel exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi's motions for judgment in two cases on the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into prestressed concrete steel wire strand from Turkey. Celik challenges the Commerce Department's refusal to accept questionnaire responses that were filed 21 and 87 minutes late in the AD and CVD cases, respectively. Judge Timothy Stanceu said the rejections amounted to an abuse of discretion and imposed a "draconian penalty" on Celik for a "minor and inadvertent technical error by its counsel that had no appreciable effect on the" investigations.
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 14 order granted an injunction until the conclusion of litigation against the liquidation of two plaintiffs' mattress imports. The Department of Justice pushed back against that timeline. It urged an end date of April 30, the same end date as the first administrative review period of the antidumping duty order the plaintiffs are contesting. Judge Gary Katzmann said that the plaintiffs, Best Mattresses International and Rose Lion Furniture International, sufficiently showed a likelihood to succeed on the merits of the case and that they would be irreparably harmed without the indefinite injunction.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A customs broker license test taker filed suit at the Court of International Trade after two appeals of her final score on the Customs Broker License Examination failed to result in a passing grade. Filing the case without an attorney, Shuzhen Zhong wants the court to review the six questions she appealed to CBP, of which she only received credit for one upon reconsideration. Zhong took particular issue with CBP's getting both her address and gender wrong when returning the results of her appeal (Zhong v. United States, CIT #22-00041).
The Commerce Department reasonably derived the separate rate respondents' dumping margin in an antidumping duty investigation by averaging the mandatory respondents' zero percent and adverse facts available rates, petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a Feb. 3 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to arguments made by the plaintiffs, led by Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., Celtic Co. and Taraca Pacific, the coalition said that Commerce properly relied on the information laid out in the petition to derive the rates since it was already vetted by Commerce as part of the pre-initiation phase of the investigation (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #18-00002).