The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China. Judge M. Miller Baker relied on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. U.S. to reject claims from exporters HLDS (B) Steel and HLD Clark Steel Pipe against Commerce's comparison of their production of oil pipe in Brunei and the Philippines to the production of hot-rolled steel, an oil piping input, in China. The Federal Circuit already found that Commerce can make the comparison because the agency indicated what part of the total value of the goods subject to the inquiries is accounted for by the last step of processing and found that the level of investment is much greater for the production of hot-rolled steel than for oil piping, Baker noted.
Court of International Trade activity
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 22 issued its mandate in a pair of cases seeking to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions. In the suits, the appellate court sustained the dismissal of the cases for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that a protest must have been filed with CBP to properly effectuate relief. The Court of International Trade initially said jurisdiction was not to be had under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since the court would have had jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) had a protest been filed (see 2209060035). The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the true nature of the suits contests CBP's assessment of the duties and not the U.S. Trade Representative's decision to grant an exclusion, even though the exclusions were granted after the deadline for filing a protest had lapsed (ARP Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2176) (The Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2177).
The National Marine Fisheries Service made a new comparability finding that two New Zealand fisheries have comparable marine mammal bycatch protections to U.S. fisheries, and may be listed on the agency’s List of Foreign Fisheries eligible for import into the U.S., NMFS said in a notice released Jan. 22.
The Commerce Department repeatedly relied on an analysis in several administrative reviews that the courts had already struck down, an exporter of Indian carbon steel welded pipe said in a Jan.19 brief responding to comments made by DOJ and domestic petitioners regarding its own motion for summary judgment (Garg Tube Export v. U.S., CIT # 21-00169).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 19 granted a joint motion that results in duty-free treatment for swimsuits reimported by SGS Sports under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9801.00.20. The ruling avoids a bench trial over whether the swimsuits qualify for the subheading as U.S. goods returned to the country.
An antidumping and countervailing duty petitioner on Jan. 19 filed its opening brief in an appeal of the Court of International Trade’s September ruling that the Commerce Department correctly excluded an importer’s shelf dividers from AD/CVD orders on flexible magnets from China (Magnum Magnetics Corp. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1164).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 19 sustained the Commerce Department's use of exporter PhosAgro's profit before tax number instead of its gross profit mark when calculating the company's phosphate mining rights benefit.
CBP released a remand determination Jan. 18 reaffirming that three importers -- Newtrend USA, Starille and Nutrawave -- attempted to evade antidumping and countervailing duty orders on Chinese glycine (Newtrend USA v. U.S., CIT # 22-00347).
Two nominees intended to fill judicial vacancies at the Court of International Trade will again be considered by the Senate after the chamber failed to approve them within the 2023 calendar year (see 2312220013).