The Court of International Trade on Aug. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's selection of a surrogate financial statement and use of respondent Siam Metal Tech Co.'s invoice date as the date of sale for the respondent's U.S. sales in an antidumping duty proceeding. Sustaining the AD investigation on boltless steel shelving units prepackaged for sale from Thailand, Judge Mark Barnett also upheld the agency's reliance on respondents Bangkok Sheet Metal Public Co.'s and Siam Metal's actual costs that are recorded in their financial accounting systems for the total cost of manufacturing.
The Commerce Department properly included importer Valeo North America's T-series aluminum sheet in the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Aug. 12. Judges Richard Taranto, Todd Hughes and Kara Stoll disagreed with the importer as to the ambiguity in the orders' scope and on whether its aluminum sheet falls outside the orders' scope, since it's heat-treated.
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 13 held that seven different types of Target General Merchandise's LED lamps are properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9405, which provides for lamps and lighting fittings "having a permanently fixed light source" not specified anywhere in the tariff schedule. Judge Lisa Wang said the LED lamps don't qualify for classification under heading 8543, since goods under chapter 85 are "generally limited to electrical lamps that are components within equipment, rather than those used independently in the home." The judge then said the products, which consist of "various string light models," specifically qualify for subheading 9405.30.00, which provides for lighting sets "of a kind used for Christmas trees."
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on Aug. 5-7 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. filed a motion for default judgment at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 10 against importer Rago Tires, seeking $56,435.48 for gross negligence in classifying its tires as not subject to antidumping duties and countervailing duties (United States v. Rago Tires, CIT # 24-00043).
The U.S. "myopically" focused on a "single piece of evidence" regarding the proper date of sale of exporter Toyo Kohan's U.S. sales in the 2022-23 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on diffusion-annealed nickel-plate flat-rolled steel from Japan, Toyo Kohan argued in an Aug. 8 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The government's brief centered on a statement in the exporter's questionnaire responses and the "price of a single example sales transaction" and says this focus is "reasonable," yet it's unreasonable to "ignore the second example in the same exhibit" that shows a price change, the brief said (Toyo Kohan Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00261).
The Commerce Department on Aug. 8 calculated an individual countervailing duty rate for exporter Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. on remand in a case on the administrative review of the CVD order on multilayered wood flooring from China for the 2017 review period. Commerce gave Jiangsu Senmao a 2.4% CVD rate in response to an instruction from the Court of International Trade to individually review the respondent (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. United States, CIT # 20-03885).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Aug. 11 that stripping the president of his authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act would lead to "ruinous" economic consequences in light of the trade deals reached with the EU, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and the U.K. (V.O.S. Selections v. Donald J. Trump, Fed. Cir. # 25-1813).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation into boltless steel shelving units prepackaged for sale from Thailand. Judge Mark Barnett upheld Commerce's selection of Thai steel shelving maker PNS Manufacturing's financial statements to determine constructed value and the agency's decision to use the date of invoice as the date of sale for respondent Siam Metal's U.S. sales. The judge also sustained Commerce's reliance on respondents Bangkok Sheet and Siam Metal's actual costs as recorded in their financial accounting systems as the companies' total cost of manufacturing.