CBP legally initiated an Enforce and Protect Act case on Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds even though they had been ruled exempt from antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China, in a Commerce Department scope ruling upheld by the Court of International Trade (see 2212190051), the government told the trade court in a March 7 brief. CBP said EAPA petitioner Endura Products' evasion allegations against the importer came before the CIT decision and were valid "at the time they were made," DOJ said (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00185).
Country of origin cases
The first ruling from the World Trade Organization's multiparty interim appeal arbitration arrangement (MPIA), an alternative to the defunct Appellate Body, put on display the various new facets of the new MPIA, according to one of the arbitrators who is also a Geneva Graduate Institute law professor. The ruling involved Colombian antidumping duties on frozen fries from certain EU countries, with novelties including word and time limits, a prehearing conference, and an online recording of the hearing, Joost Pauwelyn said in a March 6 blog post.
The Court of International Trade should deny steel manufacturer Saha Thai's request for a revised dumping margin because the company failed to exhaust its administrative remedies, defendant-intervenors Wheatland Tube and Nucor Tubular said in a March 3 brief (Saha Thai Steel Pipe v. U.S., CIT # 21-00627).
Taiwanese exporter Inventec Solar Energy Corp. (ISEC) had constructive knowledge that sales to JA Solar USA were destined for the U.S., so those sales should be included as U.S. sales in the antidumping duty rate calculated for ISEC in an administrative review on solar products from Taiwan, the Commerce Department said in March 2 remand results (JA Solar International v. United States, CIT # 21-00514).
CBP lacked sufficient evidence to begin an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on Phoenix Metal and then fabricated a conclusion that the company transshipped Chinese soil pipe through Cambodia, Phoenix said in a March 2 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Phoenix Metal v. U.S., CIT # 23-00048).
Ericsson will plead guilty and pay a criminal penalty of more than $206 million after breaching provisions of a 2019 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) stemming from Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, DOJ said March 3. Ericsson also will plead guilty to engaging in a “long-running scheme to violate" the FCPA by paying bribes, falsifying books and records, and "failing to implement reasonable internal accounting controls in multiple countries around the world,” DOJ said.
The Court of International Trade on March 3 upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty case that slashed the dumping margin for respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipe Industries after the agency accepted the company's answers to the Section A quesitonnaire response. CIT's order came after neither Ajmal nor AD petitioner Wheatland Tube submitted comments on the remand.
The Court of International Trade on March 3 granted two plaintiff-intervenors' motion for a preliminary injunction stopping liquidation for their entries, rejecting government arguments that the injunction would have impermissibly expanded the issues in the case. Citing past CIT judgments, Judge Mark Barnett held that the enlargement concept is only reserved for cases where an intervenor adds new legal claims to those already before the court.
The Court of International Trade in a March 3 order upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping case which slashed the dumping margin for respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipe Industries after the agency accepted the company's answers to the Section A questionnaire response originally rejected as untimely filed. The document was turned in late due to technical complications as a result of firm Barnes Richardson's switch to a work-from-home environment. The court remanded the issue since Commerce gave itself numerous extensions while rejecting the two-hour late submission.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: