The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, during Jan. 10 oral arguments, heard disputes over whether the court should follow the Court of International Trade in setting aside Section 232 national security tariffs on derivative products made of steel and aluminum. Seeking to differentiate the appeal from the Federal Circuit's decision in Transpacific Steel v. U.S., in which the court said the president can take certain Section 232 action beyond procedural deadlines, counsel for plaintiff-appellants PrimeSource Building Products, Oman Fasteners and Huttig Building Products said the matter is different for derivative goods, while the government said Transpacific has settled the matter (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S. , Fed. Cir. # 21-2066).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
CBP has found sufficient evidence to initiate an investigation on whether LE North America (doing business as LE Surfaces) evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China and imposed interim measures, it said in a notice dated Dec. 20 and released on Jan. 9.
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 9 opinion denied the New Zealand government's bid to delay a preliminary injunction barring the import of certain fish taken from New Zealand's West Coast North Island multispecies set-net and trawl fisheries into the U.S. The New Zealand government requested the temporary stay of the PI to set up a traceability system that would help the govenrment identify the fish subject to the injunction. Judge Gary Katzmann said that the need to set up this system does not constitute a changed circumstance that would permit the modification of the PI.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit judges questioned the limits of the finished merchandise exclusion in antidumping and countervailing duty orders during Jan. 9 oral argument in a case over whether solar panel roof mounts fall within the scope of the AD/CVD orders on aluminum extrusions from China. While Judges Pauline Newman, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham questioned plaintiff-appellant China Custom Manufacturing's contention that its solar mounts are a finished product even though they are incorporated into a larger downstream product, the judges further probed the U.S. claims against this point with equal vigor (China Custom Manufacturing v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1345).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Two Court of International Trade decisions cited by plaintiff-appellants in a scope case as supplemental authorities need not be considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, defendant-appellee Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee said in a Jan. 4 letter to the appellate court. The CIT decisions are not "pertinent and significant" because they are "not binding on this court" and "are simply further decisions from the same dissenting judge" at the trade court, the appellee said (China Custom Manufacturing v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1345).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department properly found that it had enough industry support to kick off the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products from India, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a Jan. 5 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade's ruling, Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Sharon Prost ruled that Commerce permissibly found that the term "producer" did not include quartz surface product fabricators and that the agency backed its finding that fabricators are not producers with substantial evidence via its six-factor production-related activities test.
CBP found importer Acmetex evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imported silica fabric from China, according to the results of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation released Jan. 3. CBP used adverse inferences after Acmetex stopped cooperating with the investigation and found that the company likely misrepresented the country of origin and misclassified the silica fabric as "glass cloth fiber" in addition to transshipping covered silica fabric through Canada to the U.S. In the same investigation, CBP found insufficient evidence that a second importer, New Fire, evaded the AD/CVD orders.