The Court of International Trade should dismiss a government counterclaim of unpaid duties in a classification case on dried botanicals imported by Second Nature Designs because DOJ pointed to no authority that gave it a cause of action to assert a claim to collect duties in excess of those assessed during final liquidation, Second Nature said in a May 17 brief in support of its motion to dismiss the counterclaim (Second Nature Designs v. U.S., CIT # 18-00131).

The U.S.'s customs penalty suit against importer Wanxiang America Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese manufacturing company, is a "money grab, plain and simple," Michael Roll, counsel for WXA, said during oral argument at the Court of International Trade on May 17. Roll said that because the U.S. is only seeking a penalty for WXA's entries from a company with a 92.84% dumping rate and not entries made before or after the ones at issue from a company with a zero percent rate, it is clear the government is trying to "grab the money" (United States v. Wanxiang America Corp., CIT # 22-00205).

The Court of International Trade sent back parts and upheld parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the seventh administrative review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Judge Richard Eaton remanded Commerce's surrogate financial ratio calculation for manufacturing overhead and the agency's surrogate value for labor while upholding the surrogate value determination for glue. The judge ruled Commerce engaged in mere speculation by finding that using the indirect production expenses data from a Romanian company's financial statement could be distortive in the overhead calculation. Eaton also found that there was "no source at all" for Commerce's use of 24 working days per month as part of its surrogate labor value calculation.

The Court of International Trade granted exporter M S International's motion to dismiss three of its cases contesting the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on quartz surface products from Turkey. No reason was provided by M S International's counsel as to why the cases were being dropped (M S International v. United States, CIT # 20-00137).

The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's deduction of President Donald Trump's Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from an exporter's U.S. price in an antidumping duty proceeding. Judge Jane Restani said the issue had already been resolved by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in favor of Commerce. The judge's one-page opinion on the 2019-20 administrative review of the AD order on circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey is identical to the court's order two days prior, concluding a similar suit also brought by exporter Borusan Mannesmann on the 2020-21 review of the AD order (see 2305160037) (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT # 22-00057).

Commerce correctly used adverse facts available against Korean exporter SeAH Steel for its failure to cooperate in a countervailing duty investigation on oil country tubular goods from Korea, DOJ said in its May 16 reply at the Court of International Trade. The government argued that Commerce correctly found that the Export-Import Bank of Korea's (KEXIM's) Performance Guarantee program provided a countervailable benefit using AFA (SeAH Steel Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00338).

A critical circumstances determination on imports of raw honey from Vietnam issued by the International Trade Commission should be remanded to the ITC due to a "flawed misreading of the statute," Sweet Harvest Foods and four other consolidated plaintiffs said in a May 16 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. In addition to misinterpreting the statute, Sweet Harvest said that the government's case endorses the ITC's use of outdated inventory data in assessing whether the entries were likely to “undermine seriously” an antidumping duty order to be issued in the future (Sweet Harvest Foods v. United States, CIT # 22-00188).

Importer Cyber Power Systems (USA) failed to identify a flaw in the Court of International Trade's ruling concerning the origin of the company's uninterruptible power supplies, Judge Leo Gordon said in denying Cyber Power's bid for CIT reconsideration. The judge said the request "is premised on the incorrect assumption that the court found that" the importer overcame the presumption of correctness linked to CBP's country of origin determination, which found that the products were made in China.

Actuator cable assemblies assembled in Mexico from Chinese motors and various parts from China, Taiwan, the U.S. and Mexico are products of China based on the motor's predetermined end use, CBP said in a recent ruling -- the first publicly released that cites the Court of International Trade's recent decision in an origin case involving Cyber Power (see 2302270064).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: