The Court of International Trade on June 11 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty investigation on Indonesian biodiesel after the agency disregarded Indonesian crude palm oil prices when constructing normal value for respondent Wilmar Trading.
Court of International Trade activity
A tire importer opposed a motion to dismiss its case for lack of jurisdiction June 7, arguing that the Court of International Trade could preside because CBP had made a relevant protestable decision -- the decision to delay an admissibility determination (Inspired Ventures, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 24-00062).
Exporter Oman Fasteners said a recent Court of International Trade decision on the Commerce Department's filing deadlines supports its claim at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that one "inadvertent missed deadline 'without more'" doesn't support the use of adverse facts available in an antidumping duty case. Oman Fasteners filed a notice of supplemental authority on June 10 calling the appellate court's attention to CIT's holding in Cambria Co. v. U.S. (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential decision granted the government's motion to dismiss a case from importer Greentech Energy Solutions for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Judge Mark Barnett gave the parties until June 17 to review the confidential decision so the court can publish the opinion. Greentech brought the suit under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, to contest the antidumping and countervailing duties on its solar cell entries from Vietnam, claiming that the lack of dumping, subsidization or injury finding on Vietnamese solar cells made the duties illegal (see 2306130025). The U.S. said the court didn't have jurisdiction to hear the case since Greentech should have filed a protest with CBP first to contest the duties (see 2312260052) (Greentech Energy Solutions v. United States, CIT # 23-00118).
After a remand order forced the Commerce Department to use Brazilian rather than Mexican labor cost data in calculating two Chinese exporters’ value, those exporters pushed back on the decision and the subsequent increase they saw in their own antidumping duties (New American Keg v. U.S., CIT # 20-00008).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 10 that the Court of International Trade correctly found that sales between Canada-based Midwest-CBK and its U.S. customers met the requirement of being sold "for exportation into the United States" and thus were properly liquidated using transaction value with a 75.75% "uplift" to the goods' valuation. Goods are meant for export to the U.S. when they are "clearly destined for the United States at the time of the sale," which the goods at issue were, the government said (Midwest-CBK v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1142).
The Commerce Department on June 10 changed the subsidy that it used to derive the adverse facts available countervailing duty rate for China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in a CVD review, following a rebuke from the Court of International Trade. In its remand results in a suit on the 2017 review on narrow woven ribbons from China, Commerce used the 0.87% subsidy rate for the Export Seller's Credit Program in a CVD proceeding on chrlorinated isocyanurates from China to set the CVD rate for the EBCP (Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. v. United States, CIT # 20-00059).
The Court of International Trade on June 11 sustained the Commerce Department's use of a cost-based particular market situation in an AD case on Indonesian biodiesel regarding Indonesian crude palm oil, the main input in biodiesel, due to an Indonesian export levy on crude palm oil. Judge Richard Eaton previously remanded the issue for Commerce to explain how the PMS doesn't amount to a "double remedy" given the companion countervailing duties on the export levy. The judge sustained the agency's explanation that since neither normal value nor U.S. price was affected by the levy, no double remedy exists.
Another importer alleged June 7 that the Commerce Department improperly relied on competitors’ unsupported claim that they, as domestic producers, could provide enough of an input -- aluminum rod, this time -- to cover the importer’s needs. As a result, the importer had been forced to pay “tens of millions” of dollars in Section 232 tariffs, it said (Prysmian Cables and Systems, USA v. U.S., CIT # 24-00101).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: