The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should uphold the Commerce Department's finding that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports didn't circumvent the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China, Shelter Forest and others said in a response brief. Shelter Forest argued that the appellate court should uphold the Court of International Trade's ruling that Shelter Forest's plywood wasn't later-developed merchandise and the company wasn't guilty of evasion (Shelter Forest International Acquisition Inc. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2281).
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 10 upheld the Commerce Department's rates for the separate rate respondents in an antidumping review on diamond sawblades from China. In the review, Commerce calculated the rate by averaging the adverse facts available and zero percent rates of the two respondents. Affirming the Court of International Trade's decision, the Federal Circuit said this move was valid since Commerce was authorized by the statute to rely on AFA in finding the separate rate and that the rate was supported by evidence that the separate rates all trended upwards over the past administrative reviews.
The Court of International Trade granted importer Kehoe Component Sales' consent motion to designate its action as a test case and suspend its two other actions under the test case. All three cases involve the proper Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification of the importer's heat blanket controllers. Kehoe said that the resolution of all of the actions could be best served by designating a single test case. The Department of Justice's Peter Mancuso consented to the motion (Kehoe Component Sales v. U.S., CIT #19-00007).
The Court of International Trade assigned six cases over the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China to Judge Timothy Reif. The lead plaintiffs in the cases are Zhejiang Dadongwu Greenhome Wood Co., Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, Evolutions Flooring, Dunhua City Jisen Wood Industry Co., Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co., and American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring. The complaints concern, among other things, the alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, Commerce's calculations for the provision of veneer and electricity for less than adequate remuneration, and the agency's decision to use a VAT rate that doesn't reflect what the respondent actually paid.
CBP wants the Court of International Trade to grant its voluntary remand request to reconsider its final determination in an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion case. The U.S. said the remand would allow CBP to consider the issues raised by plaintiff Fedmet Resources, including scope-related and due process arguments. Fedmet signed off on the remand request while the defendant-intervenor Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee didn't directly oppose it.
The Labor Department unlawfully relied on unverified statements from AT&T officials when denying a unionized group of former AT&T call workers trade adjustment assistance, the Court of International Trade said in a Jan. 5 opinion. Sending the decision back to Labor a second time, Judge Miller Baker said the department can't claim to have verified email communications with AT&T's in-house counsel based only on AT&T knowing the most about its business operations.
A clear reading of the law allows for an importer to bring in goods deemed "drug paraphernalia" federally if they are legal at the state level, Washington-based importer Keirton USA told the Court of International Trade in its Jan. 5 motion for judgment. Seeking to get back its imports of cannabis processors from CBP, Keirton told the trade court that the exemption allowing for the import of drug paraphernalia where it is legal at the state level is "plain and unambiguous and must be applied accordingly" (Keirton USA, Inc. v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CIT #21-00452).
No lawsuits have been filed recently at the Court of International Trade.
The Department of Justice and plaintiff-appellee Mid Continent Steel & Wire both filed corrected response briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after the appellate court found their initial submissions to not be in compliance with court rules. The Federal Circuit said that the U.S.'s brief had an incomplete case number on the cover, since it didn't include all consolidated case numbers, and that it failed to follow the court's format for referencing the underlying record. Mid Continent's brief also suffered from this latter problem while also including a mismatch of the contact information for Lauren Fraid, counsel for Mid Continent, between the brief and the user's account (Xi'an Metals & Minerals Import & Export Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2205).
The Commerce Department should have reopened the record during its voluntary remand period to consider the question of affiliation between antidumping duty respondent OCTAL and one of its U.S. customers, OCTAL told the Court of International Trade in a Dec. 22 reply brief. Since Commerce raised the issue so late in the AD review, the record wasn't "high quality" and OCTAL didn't have a chance to properly respond to the affiliation accusations, OCTAL said (OCTAL v. U.S., CIT #20-03697).