CBP properly found that pencil importer Royal Brush Manufacturing evaded antidumping duties on cased pencils from China, the Court of International Trade held in an Oct. 29 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett upheld CBP's determination after initially remanding the case for not having provided adequate public summaries of business confidential information. Finding that on remand, CBP cleared this hurdle and that the summaries did not violate Royal Brush's due process rights, Barnett upheld the evasion finding.

The Court of International Trade ordered an in-person oral argument to take place on Nov. 4 to settle a matter in which the Department of Justice alleged that the plaintiff failed to obtain its consent before filing for a statutory injunction against the liquidation of its entries. In a brief on the injunction motion, DOJ said that counsel for Cheng Shin Rubber -- led by Jeffrey Winton of Winton & Chapman -- completely misrepresented its position, declaring that it had the government's consent for the injunction, when it didn't (see 2110250052).

Importer and jewelry distributor Gunther Mele Limited fought for its preferred classification of its custom jewelry boxes, in an Oct. 28 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Arguing that CBP previously liquidated many of its jewelry boxes at its preferred rate, Gunther Mele also said that the clear make up of the boxes should qualify them for the importer's preferred tariff classification.

The Commerce Department's recent decision in a separate investigation that it can actually verify non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program appeared in litigation over a separate countervailing duty review via two sets of Oct. 29 comments on remand results filed at the Court of International Trade. The lead plaintiff in the case, Guizhou Tyre Co., attacked Commerce's decision to continue applying adverse facts available relating to the EBCP, given this reversal. The consolidated plaintiffs in the case, led by the China Manufacturers Alliance, in their own comments, argued that Commerce "has expended enormous resources and time in this action defending a position that it has itself discredited" (Guizhou Tyre Co. Ltd. v. United States, CIT #19-00032).

Importer Sakar International Inc. filed four complaints at the Court of International Trade on Oct. 28 to challenge the classification of its smartphone and tablet covers. Made predominantly of plastic or silicone, the covers were classified by CBP under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 4202.92.45, 4202.92.90 or 4202.99.90, dutiable at either 17.6% or 20%.

The Commerce Department did not reasonably find that Chinese exporter Zhejiang Machinery Import & Export Corp. failed to rebut the presumption of de facto government control, barring the company from receiving a separate antidumping rate, the exporter argued to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its Oct. 26 opening brief. Contesting the Court of International Trade's June ruling upholding Commerce's position that ZMC did not rebut this presumption, ZMC argued that Commerce was unwilling to address arguments presented by it that explained that it wasn't possible for the Chinese government to control ZMC through the labor union that owns most of its shares. This established an "irrebuttable presumption that cannot be rebutted by any factual or legal arguments," contrary to law, the brief said.

The Commerce Department's simple average of the de minimis and the adverse facts available China-wide rates to derive the all-others rate in an antidumping case did not reasonably reflect the potential dumping margin of the separate rate respondents, PrimeSource Building Products argued in an Oct. 18 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The AFA negates the presumption that mandatory respondents' rates reflect the separate rate respondents, and prior reviews show that cooperating separate respondents' rates are lower than firms subject to AFA, the brief argued (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).

The Commerce Department properly applied adverse facts available when weighing antidumping respondent Bosun Tool's country of origin information using a first-in, first-out (FIFO) methodology, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 27 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly found that although Bosun cooperated to the best of its ability with the AD review, the use of AFA was warranted because an exporter is reasonably expected to keep documents that properly document country of origin -- something that the FIFO methodology does not do.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has the jurisdiction to hear a case involving Turkey's state-owned bank Halkbank's sanctions-evasion charges, the appellate court said in an Oct. 22 opinion. Rejecting a motion to dismiss the case from Halkbank, a three-judge panel at the court said that the district court properly found that it had jurisdiction over federal criminal prosecution of Halkbank, skirting immunity conferred under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. However, the 2nd Circuit stopped short of answering whether the FSIA universally confers immunity on foreign sovereigns in a criminal context. Even if the act gave Halkbank immunity, the panel said that Halkbank qualified for commercial activity exceptions to immunity because its sanctions evasion scheme happened in the U.S.

Anonymous solar producers still have yet to justify their requests for anti-circumvention inquiries on solar cells from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, so the Commerce Department should decline to initiate the inquiries altogether, said NextEra and Florida Power & Light in their Oct. 25 response to additional information submitted by the producers nearly two weeks prior.