The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Feb. 12 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
Court of International Trade activity
While the U.S. remained neutral, a steel nail exporter on Feb. 8 called “moot” a petitioner’s motion to stay one antidumping duty appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit until the petitioner’s other interlocutory appeal had been heard (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1350).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's final results of the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on retail bags from Malaysia. Judge Stephen Vaden upheld Commerce's use of adverse facts available to set inland freight expense data for U.S. sales the agency found to be unverifiable, as well as the decision not to correct a ministerial error on the grounds that notice of the error was untimely. The court said Commerce gave exporter Euro SME multiple chances to submit verifiable data after the agency found errors in the company's actual weight and inland freight data, making the use of AFA proper due to the resulting gaps in the record.
DOJ attorney Robert Kiepura replaced Joshua Kurland as principal counsel in a case on the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Canada. The court approved the change in a Feb. 8 order (Quebec v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1807).
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security again rejected 193 requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties sought by importer California Steel Industries on its steel slab imports. Filing its remand results to the Court of International Trade on Feb. 9, BIS said that "no overriding national security concerns require that" the exclusions be granted (California Steel Industries v. United States, CIT # 21-00015).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 order vacated the dismissals of seven cases brought by Canadian exporter ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada G.P. Judge Timothy Stanceu reinstated the cases on the Customs Case Management Calendar and said they can remain there until Jan. 31, 2025 (ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada G.P. v. United States, CIT # 21-00037, -00038, -00039, -00040, -00041, -00042, -00043).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to use a simple average of standard deviations in the denominator of Cohens d test for detecting "masked" dumping as part of the antidumping investigation of steel nails from Taiwan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has remanded this decision twice, finding that the academic literature relies on a weighted average. On remand, Commerce said the literature uses a simple average when the sample sizes are equal and that the standard deviation of a full population is "in fact the actual standard deviation." Because the agency used the full population of data in using the Cohen's d test, using a simple average is supported, Judge Claire Kelly said.
The Commerce Department continued to give Indian exporter Bharat Forge Limited a 0% dumping rate after conducting on-site verification for the first time on remand. Submitting its remand results to the Court of International Trade on Feb. 7, Commerce said the on-site verification led to a host of revisions to the agency's margin calculations, though the end result was ultimately the same for the company (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00007).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to "refuse to reopen" the issue of exporter Double Coin's eligibility for a separate antidumping duty rate in a suit returned to the appellate court after the company failed to raise the issue on its first visit to the Federal Circuit (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: