The Court of International Trade on May 30 remanded the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora and Apiario Diamante Producao e Comercial de Mel, collectively doing business as Supermel, in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from Brazil. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that minor discrepancies between data submitted from small, unaffiliated beekeeper suppliers and the data submitted by Supermel isn't a valid reason to not use the exporter's acquisition costs as a proxy for the actual cost of production data. In addition, the court rejected Commerce's claim that Supermel's responses to five of the agency's questions were deficient, finding that the "principal information that Commerce found Supermel to have withheld was provided in full" by the company.
Court of International Trade activity
The Court of International Trade on May 31 said that duty drawback claims are deemed liquidated after one year, as long as the underlying import entries are liquidated and final, and that "finality" is defined as the end of the 180-day protest window for the underlying entry. As a result of this clarification, Judge Jane Restani granted one of importer Performance Additives' duty drawback claims on its polymer and plastic chemical entries. The other claim's entries weren't liquidated and final on its one-year anniversary, precluding deemed liquidation.
CBP continued to find that three importers evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China on remand at the Court of International Trade, after providing the companies with access to the confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT # 20-03914).
The Court of International Trade on May 28 rejected the government's motion for partial reconsideration of the court's decision finding that the government violated the "implied contractual term" of reasonableness in waiting eight years to demand payment from surety Aegis Security Insurance Co. on a customs bond.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. asked the Court of International Trade for leave to exceed its 7,000 word limit by 2,300 words in a reply brief amid its case against a Chinese exporter of automobile accessories (see 2404100071) (Keystone Automotive Operations v. U.S., CIT # 21-00215).
An Indian quartz countertop exporter had the 323.12% adverse facts available antidumping duty assigned to it remanded by the Court of International Trade on May 28.
The Court of International Trade on May 28 said the Commerce Department erred in revoking the antidumping duty orders on stilbenic optical brightening agents from Taiwan and China after it didn't receive a timely notice of intent to participate in the orders' sunset reviews from a domestic producer. Judge M. Miller Baker told Commerce to conduct the full sunset reviews since U.S. manufacturer Archroma U.S. filed substantive responses to the agency's notice of initiation of the sunset reviews.
The Court of International Trade on May 23 entered a default judgment against importer Rayson Global and its owner Doris Cheng due to their failure to file an answer to the government's complaint accusing them of avoiding antidumping and Section 301 duties on uncovered mattress innersprings from China (United States v. Rayson Global, CIT # 23-00201).
The 323.12% antidumping rate received by quartz countertop exporter Antique Group in an administrative review after it missed a questionnaire deadline by five hours is an abuse of the Commerce Department’s discretion, Court of International Trade Judge Mark Barnett said in a May 28 opinion. The judge ordered Commerce to accept the exporter’s late filing; he also determined that the department’s application of adverse facts available to Antique Group would have been unreasonable even if the court had upheld its rejection of the exporter’s late filing. Addressing petitioner Cambria’s claim, Barnett also concluded that Commerce must also reconsider or further explain its departure from the expected method in calculating nonselected respondents' rate.