The Court of International Trade on Nov. 25 sustained the Commerce Department's third remand in a case on the antidumping duty investigation on beer kegs from China. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld Commerce's decisions not to reopen the record to use a Mexican consumer price index inflator to adjust Mexican surrogate wage information and to use Brazilian surrogate wage data. Baker said Commerce reasonably explained that it wasn't necessary to reopen the record to inflate the Mexican data when existing data from Brazil "suited the agency's purposes."
Court of International Trade activity
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade reassigned a customs penalty action against California-based solar cell importer executive Paul Bakhoum from Judge Richard Eaton to Judge Stephen Vaden. The U.S. brought the suit in October, accusing Bakhoum of neglignece and seeking $776,250.51 in unpaid duties and damages (see 2410080051). Bakhoum worked as the vice president for solar cell importer Ecosolargy and is alleged to have made various errors when entering solar shipments during 2014-15. An attorney for the U.S. didn't respond to a request for comment on the case reassignment (U.S. v. Paul Bakhoum, CIT # 24-00188).
A Turkish rebar exporter Nov. 17 sought judgment in two old and two new challenges against the Commerce Department in the Court of International Trade (see 2407010038) (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #24-00096).
An importer of mastectomy bras filed Nov. 21 its motion for judgment in a 2020 case (see 2107140063) arguing that its bras should have been classified by CBP as parts or accessories for artificial body parts, not as “other brassieres of manmade fiber” (Amoena USA Corp. v. U.S., CIT #20-00100).
Turkish exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) filed a trio of opening briefs in its three concurrent appeals at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, all of which are seeking to account for the exclusion of exporter Colakoglu from the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel from Turkey in the International Trade Commission's five-year sunset review of the order.
The Commerce Department calculated a zero percent dumping margin for exporter Grupo Simec on remand at the Court of International Trade, dropping the 66.7% adverse facts available rate for the company in the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete rebar from Mexico. Commerce accepted submissions from the exporter on remand after the trade court said the agency unreasonably declined an extension request from the company (Grupo Acecero v. United States, CIT # 22-00202).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. 21 on AD/CVD proceedings:
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Importer Coulisse Distribution voluntarily dismissed its customs suit at the Court of International Trade on its DC (direct current) electric motors, filing a notice of dismissal Nov. 14. Coulisse filed the suit seeking an exclusion from Section 301 duties under Harmonized Tariff Schedule secondary subheading 9903.88.67. The motors were classified under subheading 8501.10.4060, dutiable at 4.4%, and secondary subheading 9903.88.01. Counsel for the importer didn't respond to our request for comment (Coulisse Distribution v. U.S., CIT # 23-00245).