AA Metals Engaged in evasion of antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on aluminum sheet from China by purchasing re-rolled sheet from Turkey, CBP said in a final determination dated March 21. The investigation, initiated in June 2020, followed a March 2020 allegation by Texarkana Aluminum that AA Metals was importing Chinese-origin aluminum sheet re-rolled by two Turkish companies, Teknik and PMS.
Country of origin cases
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated April 5 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
CBP began a formal EAPA investigation into whether Acmetex Inc. and New Fire Co., Ltd. evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on amorphous silica fabric, according to a March 28 announcement by CBP. The case follows an Oct 18, 2021, allegation by Auburn Manufacturing, Inc., that claims Canadian company Acmetex evaded AD and CVD orders A-570-038 and C-570-0396 on silica fabric produced in China by misclassifying fabric as “glass cloth fiber” and transshipping covered silica fabric from China through Canada to the U.S.
Whistleblower law firm Mark A. Strauss Law issued a news release April 5 seeking whistleblowers to sign up for a consultation if they have information on customs fraud via the transshipment of Chinese-origin goods through other countries. The news release says whistleblowers can receive awards of 15%-30% of recoveries made under the False Claims Act, and the firm offers a free consultation for anyone that knows of goods subject to the Section 301 tariffs on China goods that are being transshipped through such countries as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan in attempts to skirt the U.S. duties.
The Court of International Trade remanded parts of the 2018 countervailing duty review on utility scale wind towers from Vietnam in a March 24 opinion made public April 4. Judge Timothy Reif sent the case back to the Commerce Department for it to address evidence submitted by the CVD petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition over alleged manipulation of the denominators used in the benefit calculation and to substantiate its conclusion that respondent CS Wind Vietnam didn't import its steel plate, thereby neglecting an import duty exemption subsidy.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated April 5 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Court of International Trade remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department's final results in the 2018 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on utility scale wind towers from Vietnam, in a March 24 opinion made public April 4. Judge Timothy Reif said that on remand Commerce must address evidence presented by CVD petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition of respondent CS Wind Vietnam's alleged manipulation of the denominator used in the benefit calculation and evidence relating to the country of origin of CS Wind Vietnam's steel plate.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative “properly exercised its authority” under the Section 307 modification provisions of the 1974 Trade Act when it ordered the imposition of the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports, the Court of International Trade ruled in an April 1 opinion. Test-case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products, plus the more than 3,600 complaints that followed, sought to vacate the tariffs on grounds that lists 3 and 4A were unlawful without USTR launching a new Section 301 investigation.
An importer is asking the Court of International Trade to direct CBP to reliquidate entries of Chinese citric acid anhydrous that Thatcher says CBP improperly liquidated as subject to antidumping and countervailing duties. In its March 31 complaint, Thatcher said that CBP extended liquidation of the entries with neither a "statutory basis" nor the "legal authority" to do so and without instruction from the Commerce Department (Thatcher Company, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00067).