The government correctly classified counterweights for mini-excavators as "backhoe" parts under tariff subheading 8431.49.9044, meaning that they were not eligible for Section 301 tariff exclusion, ruled the Court of International Trade in a July 21 opinion. Judge Jane Restani sided with the government's dictionary definitions of "backhoe" and "excavator," rather than Norca's industry usage. Even if Norca’s argument about the commercial understanding is correct, "Norca cannot overcome legislative intent," said the court. The CIT cannot accept a commercial meaning that is at odds with the tariff schedule itself, Restani said in her ruling.

The Court of International Trade in a July 19 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to raise the dumping margins in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duties on heavy-walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Mexico for mandatory respondents Maquilacero and Prolamsa. The margins were raised from 0% to 3.48% for Maquilacero. and from 0% to 2.11%. for Prolamsa.

Importer Amsted Rail Co. voluntarily dismissed its conflict-of-interest suit against the Commerce Department at the Court of International Trade. The case, involving the company's former counsel Daniel Pickard, now partner at Buchanan Ingersoll, was previously stayed pending resolution of a related matter against the International Trade Commission. Amsted earlier this month also dismissed the ITC matter at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after the importer filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal (see 2307050052) (Amsted Rail Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00316).

The partial revocation of an antidumping duty order for a Turkish company should have meant that company's export volumes were to be excluded from a sunset review of the AD order, Turkish steelmaker Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) argued in a July 14 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. U.S. International Trade Commission, CIT # 22-00351).

The Commerce Department is set to increase the antidumping duty rate it assigned to Best Mattresses and Rose Lion in an AD investigation on mattresses from Cambodia, it said in a remand redetermination dated July 17. Commerce reopened the record and issued a supplemental questionnaire to the petitioners, asking for further explanation of the process by which they retrieved Emirates Sleep’s financial statements and how the statements constituted publicly available information (Best Mattresses International v. U.S., CIT # 21-00281).

The Court of International Trade in a July 20 opinion granted the government's motion to toss Target's case seeking to invalidate a CIT order instructing CBP reliquidate Target's metal-top iron tables at the 72.29% dumping rate instead of the original 9.47% rate. Judge Leo Gordon said that were Target to succeed, the result would "turn the clock back over 40 years" prior to the Customs Court Act's passage and "again call into question whether a party before the Court could obtain full and complete relief." Reversing the order as Target requests would "elevate the principle of finality" of liquidation "over the inherent power" of the trade court under Article III of the Constitution, the judge said.

The Court of International Trade in a July 19 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to raise the dumping margins in the 2018-19 review of the antidumping duties on heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Mexico for mandatory respondents Maquilacero and Prolamsa from 0% to 3.48% and 2.11%, respectively. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce properly corrected ministerial errors alleged by petitioner Nucor Corp. in Maquilacero's rate by "removing the inadvertent zeros within the calculation programming" and dropping data from the time before the review period. The judge also sustained the agency's decision to fix its currency conversion mistakes made in calculating Prolamsa's rate.

The Court of International Trade in a July 20 opinion remanded the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on mattresses from Thailand. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that Commerce's reliance on unverified data from respondent Saffron Living Co. was illegal. While the government claimed that because Commerce was unable to verify Saffron's information it could use the exporter's information as facts otherwise available, Baker said this reading would "eviscerate the separate requirement" that Commerce verify all information relied on in making a final determination. The judge also sent back Commerce's refusal to apply either transactions disregarded or major input rules in light of evidence of Saffron's substantial affiliated-party transactions, dubbing the government's defense "anemic."

Tire exporter Guizhou Tyre Co. and Guizhou Tyre Import and Export Co. will appeal a Court of International Trade decision upholidng the Commerce Department's finding that Guizhou failed to rebut the presumption of government control in the antidumping duty investigation on truck and bus tires from China. Per the notice of appeal, the companies will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the opinion, the trade court said that despite Commerce's "inartful and internally-inconsistent approach" to answering whether a company majority-owned by a government entity could ever prove to be free of government control, the agency did enough here to show that Guizhou's largest shareholder was still run by the government (see 2305230060) (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00031).

The Court of International Trade in a July 17 order denied importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West)'s motion for stay of enforcement of judgment pending appeal in a customs dispute on the classification of frozen fruit mixtures. Judge Stephen Vaden said that in light of the U.S. claim that it will "take no action to reliquidate the entries at issue" until the importer's appeal is resolved, the court dismisses the motion as moot (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. U.S., CIT # 20-00131).