The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 23 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's 2018-19 review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Turkey. Judge Jane Restani said Commerce legally deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid by exporter Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi from its U.S. price. Noksel argued the government, by increasing the duties solely for goods from Turkey, distinguished the duties from the other Section 232 tariffs. Restani saw "no reason to vary" from past court rulings on this point. The judge also rejected Noksel's bid for a duty drawback adjustment.
The statute of limitations for CBP to collect on customs bonds runs six years from the date of the underlying entry's liquidation, not from the date that CBP demanded payment, the Court of International Trade said in an opinion released publicly on Aug. 22, rejecting CBP's bid to collect on a 20-year-old customs bond.
Law firm Benesch Friedlander changed its Cleveland address from 200 Public Square, Suite 2300, to 127 Public Square, Suite 4900. The firm notified the Court of International Trade on Aug. 18. Benesch Friedlander attorneys represent various clients in 19 separate Section 301 cases, all of which are a part of the massive litigation.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department unlawfully broke with past practice by relying on raw honey acquisition costs as a proxy to calculate costs of production in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from India, a lawyer for the American Honey Producers Association and the Sioux Honey Association argued during oral arguments at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 16 (American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., CIT # 22-00195).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential Aug. 21 opinion again sent back the Commerce Department's decision not to investigate the alleged off-peak sale of electricity below cost as part of the 2018 review of the countervailing duty order on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from South Korea. Judge Mark Barnett also remanded for a second time the agency's decision not to treat POSCO Plantec, an affiliate of respondent POSCO, as a cross-owned input supplier of POSCO regarding the supply of scrap (Nucor Corp. v. United States, CIT # 21-00182).
The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 22 opinion upheld CBP's remand results in an Enforce and Protect Act investigation that found importer Aspects Furniture International evaded antidumping duties on wooden bedroom furniture from China. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that CBP properly relied on statements from CBP employees, which revealed that these employees saw workers in the Chinese manufacturing plants destroying documents. As a result of this conduct observed during verification, the agency levied adverse inferences against the importer. The judge said the adverse inferences and the overall evasion finding were proper given not only the document destruction but the many discrepancies found in Aspects' entry documents when compared to other evidence.
The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 22 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision on remand to find that hardwood plywood made by the Vietnam Finewood Co. using two-ply panels imported into Vietnam from China is outside the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. Judge Mark Barnett said that the scope decision complies with his previous order instructing Commerce to issue a scope ruling in line with the "unambiguous terms" of the orders' scope.
The government cannot collect 20-year-old customs bonds when it took no action to collect them for over a decade, ruled the Court of International Trade in an opinion made public on Aug. 22. Judge Richard Eaton found the six-year statute of limitations on the bonds "began to run at liquidation when all of the events necessary to bring suit for the duties owed had occurred," not when CBP demanded payment. Even if the court agreed that CBP's claim that its action for breach of contract accrued thirty days after AHAC failed to pay, the claims would still be time-barred, said Eaton. Issuing a demand for payment was an act solely within the control of CBP. "Like any prudent litigant, CBP ... must act reasonably in pursuing its claims under a bond," he said.
The Commerce Department failed to consider the "reliance interests" of antidumping petitioners led by Bonney Forge Co. when sticking by its decision to find that questionnaires issued in lieu of on-site verification satisfied the statute's requirement for verification, the Court of International Trade ruled on Aug. 21. Judge Stephen Vaden said that while past practice "is not an inescapable straitjacket," an agency must put a "reasoned explanation on the record" in compliance with the rules established by the Supreme Court in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California.