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.
Court of International Trade activity
Customs broker Seko Logistics asked the Court of International Trade on June 7 for expedited briefing in its suit against CBP's suspension of the company from Type 86 filing and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. Seko said greater delay in the case "deprives the requested relief of much of its value" and sets "extraordinary hardship" on the broker (Seko Customs Brokerage v. U.S., CIT # 24-00097).
The Court of International Trade on June 10 signaled that CBP's practice of not notifying companies when they become subject to interim Enforce and Protect Act investigations could give rise to a due process claim should the company sufficiently allege that it suffered "specific enough harm." However, the court found that importer Phoenix Metal failed to allege that harm with enough specificity.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a June 7 order affirmed the Court of International Trade's decision to sustain the Commerce Department's use of antidumping duty respondent Z.A. Sea Food's (ZASF's) Vietnamese sales to calculate normal value in an AD review on Indian frozen warmwater shrimp. The unanimous order from Judges Alan Lourie, Raymond Clevenger and Todd Hughes was issued without an accompanying opinion.
The Commerce Department on June 7 lowered the dumping margin for nine separate rate respondents in the 2016-17 review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China, from 42.57% to 31.63%, after revising aspects of its dumping analysis (Fusong Jinlong Wooden Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 19-00144).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A defendant-intervenor in an exporter’s case challenging the results of a sunset review of the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber from Canada on June 6 opposed a motion to stay proceedings while a similar case winds its way through the appeals process. It argued that while the case on appeal deals (again) (see 2107150032) with the proper use of the “Cohen’s d test,” (see 2401110037) the case is not applicable in its own litigation (Resolute FP Canada v. U.S., CIT # 23-00095).
The Court of International Trade on June 10 sustained the antidumping and countervailing duty evasion finding against importer Phoenix Metal for transshipping cast iron soil pipe from China through Cambodia. Judge Jane Restani said that CBP supported its finding with a wealth of evidence and that the agency's finding that Phoenix had some production capacity in Cambodia isn't enough to sink the evasion determination. Restani also rejected a host of due process claims made by Phoenix, though the court said a plaintiff could show that lasting harm was suffered by CBP's failure to provide notice of the establishment of interim measures. However, Phoenix failed to make this showing in the present case.
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit heard arguments June 6 in a lumber exporter's case. The exporter is challenging its 2020 cash deposit rate set by a 2019 review after the Commerce Department previously ordered liquidation of its 2019 entries at a lower rate carried over from 2018 (J.D. Irving v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1652).
Exporters Jinko Solar Holding Co. and Boviet Solar Technology Co., along with various of their subsidiaries and affiliated importers, moved to intervene in a case at the Court of International Trade against the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on Southeast Asian solar panels (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).