The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in a case on the countervailing duty investigation of cold-rolled steel products from South Korea. In a decision penned on Jan. 21 but made public Feb. 1, the trade court upheld Commerce's decision to find that the provision of electricity to South Korean steel companies wasn't a countervailable benefit. Judge Mark Barnett said that Commerce sufficiently addressed the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's reservations about the agency's initial ruling of no countervailable benefit, including the role of the Korean Power Exchange's impact on the electricity market.
OCP North America, the U.S. subsidiary of a Moroccan fertilizer exporter, penned a letter to U.S. farmers urging their support of the company's court case against the countervailing duty order on phosphate fertilizer from Morocco. The letter, sent through public relations firm Cogent Strategies, linked to a website also established by Cogent to serve as a platform for farmers to express their dissatisfaction with the order. The case the letter references is at the Court of International Trade and is challenging the International Trade Commission's injury determination that led to the imposition of the CVD order.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Porsche Motorsports North America will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit a Dec. 30 Court of International Trade opinion that held that the company's auto parts and tools exported to Canada for use at auto races then re-imported don't qualify for duty-free treatment, it said in a Jan. 31 notice of appeal. Porsche sought duty-free treatment for its goods brought back into the U.S. under a goods returned tariff provision for "tools of the trade." While Porsche said that its goods were exported to support race teams, the trade court said that the auto parts were exported to generate sales to race teams rather than for a professional purpose, as required by the Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9801.00.8500 (see 2201030038) (Porsche Motorsports North America v. U.S., CIT #16-00182).
Antidumping duty respondent Goodluck India Limited filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's assessment of antidumping duties on its entries since they were not subject to the ADD order at the time, the company said. Goodluck participated in the antidumping duty investigation into cold-drawn mechanical tubing of carbon and alloy steel from India in which it was assigned a 33.7% cash deposit rate. The respondent then challenged this decision at CIT, which eventually overturned Commerce, affirming a final zero percent margin for Goodluck. The result was Commerce revoking the ADD order for Goodluck (Goodluck India Limited v. United States, CIT #22-00024).
The Court of International Trade partially granted the U.S.' partial remand request in a challenge of over 54 Section 232 steel tariff exclusion denials. In the Feb. 1 order, the court allowed the Commerce Department to take another look at 15 of the 54 exclusion denials, per its request, but only gave the agency 106 days to do so, as opposed to the 150-day timeline for which Commerce asked. While the plaintiff, NLMK Pennsylvania, consented to both Commerce's remand request and the agency's condition that a new decision maker be involved in the denials, the steel company sought further conditions such as the identities of the officials who would conduct the new reviews. The trade court denied NLMK's requests.
The massive Section 301 litigation that has inundated the U.S. Court of International Trade since the first cases were filed 16 months ago enters a critical new phase Feb. 1 when oral argument is scheduled for 10 a.m. EST before the three-judge panel of Mark Barnett, Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves. Virtually all the thousands of complaints seek to vacate the lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports and get the duties paid refunded with interest on grounds that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its tariff-wielding authority under the 1974 Trade Act and violated protections in the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act (APA) against sloppy federal agency rulemakings.
The 15% tariff on most solar panels and the 15% tariff on imported solar cells past a 2.5 gigawatt threshold are slated to expire Feb. 6, and, according to Reuters, the White House is considering accepting some of the International Trade Commission's recommendations on extending the solar panel and cell safeguard, and rejecting others. The ITC recommended reducing the current 15% rate by just .25% in 2022, and by another quarter point each year, until early 2026, when the safeguard would expire.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer Meyer Corporation filed a corrected reply brief in a key case over the use of "first sale" valuation on goods from China after its initial brief was found to not be in compliance with the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's rules. The Federal Circuit said that the contact information for Meyer's lawyers didn't match the information on the individuals' entries of appearance on the docket (see 2201240043). Meyer's lead counsel is John Peterson of Neville Peterson. Meyer's resubmission purportedly fixes this error. The brief came in Meyer's appeal based on a Court of International Trade ruling that held that first sale treatment may not be applicable to non-market economy exports (see 2201190059). Meyer argued in the brief that CIT improperly applied the "dual burden of proof" when it denied the importer first sale valuation on its cookware from China (Meyer Corporation v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1932).