Mediation in a customs penalty case did not result in a settlement, the Court of International said in a May 30 report. Judge Leo Gordon sat as the mediator and declared that the process wrapped up on May 26 without a result. The U.S. filed the suit alleging that Crown Cork & Seal USA misclassified its metal can lid imports, valued at around $51 million, underpaying around $1.3 million in duties between 2004 and 2009. The trade court previously denied Crown Cork's bid to dismiss fraud and gross negligence claims in the case (see 2302280053) (U.S. v. Crown Cork & Seal USA, CIT # 21-00361).

The Court of International Trade overlooked the principle that the Commerce Department has the burden to support its use of the expected method in antidumping cases, importer PrimeSource Building Products argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The non-selected respondent filed the suit to challenge Commerce's decision to weight average two adverse facts available rates when calculating the non-selected respondents' rate in an administrative review on steel nails from Taiwan (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2128).

CBP illegally failed to apply exclusions for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs to eight shipments of hot wrought steel round bars even though the exclusions were granted after the shipments entered the U.S., importer Saarsteel argued in a complaint last week at the Court of International Trade. The company said it is CBP's practice to allow an importer to claim a granted exclusion via a post-summary correction or a protest when the exclusion was granted after the entry was made but "relates back to a submission date covering the entry" (Saarsteel Inc. v. United States, CIT # 21-00271).

The Court of International Trade remanded parts and upheld parts of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on metal lockers from China. Judge Mark Barnett sent back the investigation so that Commerce can reconsider its treatment of surrogate company Ayes Celikhasir's "incentive income," "shipping revenues," "rental income" and "interest income" when calculating surrogate financial ratios. The judge sustained Commerce's treatment of certain other real operating income categories. Barnett also upheld the agency's determination that Ayes made comparable merchandise with the goods under investigation while plaintiff List Industries' preferred surrogate company, Grupo Carso, did not.

The Commerce Department correctly reconsidered ministerial error comments in recalculating antidumping duty rates in its remand results on the 2018-19 administrative review on heavy walled rectangular welded steel pipes and tubes from Mexico, DOJ said in its May 25 response to remand comments at the Court of International Trade (Nucor Tubular Products v. U.S., CIT # 21-00543).

The Commerce Department incorrectly valued imported coal during an antidumping review on activated carbon from China, using a tariff schedule code for coal that was less specific than required and failing to use the best available data for valuing coal tar pitch inputs, Jilin Bright Future Chemicals said in a May 25 motion for judgment (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00336).

Fourteen types of frozen fruit mixtures, five of which contain vegetable ingredients, should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 0811.90.80 as "other" frozen fruits, dutiable at 14.5%, the Court of International Trade ruled. Judge Stephen Vaden said the merchandise is properly classified under heading 0811 since the term "Fruit ... frozen" describes these goods in whole.

The Court of International Trade should not stay a case challenging an Enforce and Protect Act finding of evasion while another related case on whether the products were covered by the scope of the relevant antidumping and countervailing duty orders goes through remand, importers argued in a May 24 motion (Far East American, et. al. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00213).

The Commerce Department illegally found that upholstered furniture imported by Amini Innovation Corp. was subject to the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China, the company argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. Amini said that its furniture, sold as different collections under its AICO brand differ from the in-scope furniture "in terms of physical characteristics, expectations of ultimate purchasers, ultimate use, channels of trade, and the manner in which they were advertised" (Amini Innovation Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00090).

The Commerce Department illegally relied on raw honey acquisition costs as a proxy to calculate costs of production in the antidumping duty investigation into raw honey from India, despite those respondents withholding information and impeding the investigation, the American Honey Producers Association and the Sioux Honey Association argued in a May 23 brief at the Court of International Trade (American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., CIT # 22-00195).