The Court of International Trade shouldn't reinstate the Commerce Department's exclusion of four Canadian lumber exporters as part of the countervailing duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada, the CVD petitioner said in an Oct. 27 brief at the Court of International Trade. The petitioner, the committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations, said that the four exporters' "mere assertions" that changed circumstances exist, warranting the retroactive exclusion of the companies, is not enough (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, CIT # 19-00122).
The Commerce Department should find that there was a gap in the official record and apply adverse inferences to German thermal paper exporter Koehler if the case is remanded, U.S. thermal paper makers Domtar and Appvion said in their Oct. 26 answers to the Court of International Trade's questions before upcoming oral arguments, scheduled for Nov. 1 (Matra Americas v. U.S., CIT # 21-00632).
Importer Cherish Your Health Food "failed to exercise reasonable care and competence" in submitting import documents related to its entries of fresh garlic from China, the U.S. said in an Oct. 30 complaint at the Court of International Trade. As a result of the company's "negligent violations" of customs laws, the U.S. is seeking over $254,000 related to a group of three entries, dubbed "Group A," it said (United States v. Cherish Your Health Food, CIT # 23-00230).
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 30 denied a petition for writ of certiorari regarding one question on Nebraska man Byungmin Chae's customs broker license exam. Chae took the test in April 2018 and subsequently took the result through multiple levels of administrative and judicial appeal before seeking Supreme Court review. He will remain one correct answer shy of the 75% threshold needed to pass the exam (Byungmin Chae v. Janet Yellen, U.S. Sup. Ct. # 23-200).
The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 30 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a case on the 2017-18 antidumping review of multilayered wood flooring from China. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce properly calculated the surrogate manufacturing overhead ratio by using the indirect production expenses amount in the numerator and listing its reasons for taking out energy costs and putting them in the denominator. The judge also upheld the use of Romania's International Labor Organization data to calculate the surrogate's hourly labor value, saying "the data reflects hours actually worked in the surrogate country."
Canadian exporter Tolko Industries, a non-individually examined company in the 2021 review of the antidumping duty order on Canadian softwood lumber, said its 6.2% dumping rate was not backed by substantial evidence. Filing a complaint at the Court of International Trade on Oct. 27, Tolko said that since its rate was derived from rates for the two mandatory respondents which themselves were not supported by substantial evidence, its rate is illegal (Tolko Industries v. United States, CIT # 23-00204).
CBP failed to apply an Office of the U.S. Trade Representative-granted Section 301 exclusion for "flexible pressure sensitive LCD display devices used as a surface for electronic wiring" to importer Kent Displays' merchandise, the importer told the Court of International Trade in an Oct. 27 motion for summary judgment. Kent argued that its Model WT16312 Dashboard is the type of device as described by the exclusion and, as such, should be free of the 25% Section 301 duties under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9013.80.7000 (Kent Displays v. United States, CIT # 20-00156).
A CBP headquarters decision on a protest is a “prior interpretive ruling or decision" that Ohio-based tent importer Under the Weather should have been able to rely on for tariff classification purposes, and as a result its classification challenge on backpacking tents shouldn't be dismissed, the importer told the Court of International Trade in a Oct. 26 brief at the Court of International Trade (Under the Weather v. U.S., CIT # 21-00211).
The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 25 text-only order denied as moot the renewed motion by the U.S. to stay proceedings in an Enforce and Protect Act case, pending final resolution of a related matter. The present case, Far East American v. U.S., concerns an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion determination on two-ply hardwood products from China. The government asked for a stay while another case brought by Far East American went through the trade court. CIT ruled on that one in August, finding that the Commerce Department properly excluded hardwood plywood made by Vietnam Finewood using two-ply panels imported into Vietnam from China from the scope of the orders (see 2308220033). The stay in Far East American's second case was dropped following the ruling (Far East American v. U.S., CIT # 22-00213).
Chinese exporter Jilin Bright Future Chemicals did not exhaust its administrative remedies in challenging calculations in an administrative review on activated carbon from China, but it can still raise an issue with the calculations because Commerce didn't finalize its methodology until the final results, the company argued in its Oct. 24 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00336).