Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during a March 7 oral argument prodded various statutory interpretations of U.S. countervailing duty law as it pertains to finding whether demand for a good is "substantially dependent" on an upstream product for purposes of assigning countervailing duties. If substantial dependence is established, Commerce may attribute subsidies to a raw agricultural grower to a later stage producer.
Court of International Trade activity
Exporters Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. and Heze Huayi Chemical Co. filed a complaint on March 6 at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's consideration of Romania as a surrogate country in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on chlorinated isocyanurates from China (Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00026).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 7 said that importer RKW Klerks' net wraps products, used in a machine to bale harvested crops, are not "parts" of harvesting machinery under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. Judges Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham thus sided with CBP's classification of the products as "warp knit fabric," dutiable at 10% under HTS subheading 6005.39.00.
The Court of International Trade last week ordered a hearing in a countervailing duty injury case on whether any party violated the court's rules regarding the bracketing of confidential information, suggesting that Rule 11 sanctions were on the table.
Preparations continue for a jury trial set for April 1 in a criminal arms smuggling case involving the constitutionality of "specially designed" provisions in U.S. export controls (U.S. v. Quadrant Magnetics, LLC, W.D. Ky. # 3:22-CR-88-DJH).
The Court of International Trade on March 6 sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results excluding Star Pipe Products' ductile iron flanges from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China.
U.S. importer CME Acquisitions filed a complaint on March 6 at the Court of International Trade to contest the adverse facts available rate for the non-selected companies in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel sheet and strip in coils from Taiwan (CME Acquisitions v. United States, CIT # 24-00032).
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
International Rights Advocates said the Court of International Trade's recent decision in Ninestar Corp. v. U.S. "highlights the unreasonableness of CBP's delay in issuing a [withhold release order] against imports of cocoa products made with forced child labor in Cote d'Ivoire" (International Rights Advocates v. U.S., CIT # 23-00165).
A group of steel nail exporters led by PT Enterprise will appeal a February Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's use of a simple average of standard deviations in the denominator of the Cohen's d test in detecting "masked" dumping as part of the antidumping duty investigation on steel nails from Taiwan (see 2402120036). The companies will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, where the Cohen's d test is being litigated in a lead case, Stupp Corp. v. U.S. The government's central contention in the present case is that Commerce's use of the full population of data precludes it from needing to satisfy statistical assumptions such as the normal variance of data (Mid Continent Steel and Wire v. U.S., CIT # 15-00213).