The Court of International Trade on Jan. 16 sent back CBP's finding that importer Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said CBP, in both the final evasion decision and an administrative review of the decision, committed "multiple errors, both of fact and of law." The judge said CBP didn't have evidence on its side in making the evasion finding, nor did it properly initiate the investigation.
Court of International Trade activity
A Greek pipe exporter said Commerce made an error calculating its dumping rate, then violated antidumping duty laws when it didn't allow comment before hitting it with an adverse facts available rate, in a Jan. 16 reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2094).
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 16 order allowed some changes proposed by the U.S. to the amended protective order (APO) in exporter Ninestar Corp.'s case against its addition to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, but it denied a motion from Ninestar to amend the protective order (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).
Importer Sweet Harvest Foods and the National Honey Packers & Dealers Association will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit a November Court of International Trade decision sustaining the International Trade Commission's critical circumstances finding on raw honey imports from Vietnam that led to the retroactive imposition of antidumping duties on the products, they said in Jan. 16 notices of appeal (see 2311170064) (Sweet Harvest Foods v. U.S., CIT # 22-00188).
Importer Bral Corp. and the U.S. settled a customs case on the company's entries of allegedly defective plywood, according to a Jan. 16 stipulation of dismissal, but didn't make the settlement public. The company declined to comment on the terms of the settlement (Bral Corp. v. United States, CIT # 20-00154).
The Commerce Department lowered all Moroccan phosphate fertilizer exporters’ countervailing duty rates from 19.97% to 7.41% in its final redetermination on remand of the final determination in a CVD investigation. However, it refused to reverse a finding that a Moroccan government program granting reductions in tax fines and penalties was de facto specific to the investigation’s sole respondent (The Mosaic Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00116).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 16 rejected the Commerce Department's finding that importer Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said CBP's final evasion determination and administrative review of the final decision contained "multiple errors, both of fact and of law." For instance, CBP pointed to no evidence showing that Columbia received aluminum door thresholds from China, transshipped the thresholds from China through Vietnam or falsely declared the country of origin as Vietnam instead of China. Stanceu added that CBP erroneously relied on a 2019 anti-circumvention proceeding, which applies only to aluminum extrusions exported from Vietnam made from aluminum previously extruded in China.
The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's decision to accept antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners' supplemental questionnaire response after initially rejecting it for being submitted 16 minutes late. Judge M. Miller Baker, in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16, nodded to his prior opinion in the case, in which he held that the rejection of the submission was "the very definition of abuse of discretion" (see 2307170036). The result was a zero percent dumping margin for the exporter.
The Commerce Department swapped its use of partial adverse facts available for partial neutral facts available for antidumping duty respondent Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. after admitting that it isn't able to determine whether Tainai has "sufficient control over its suppliers to induce their cooperation" (Shanghai Tainai Bearing Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00038).
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results reversing the use of adverse facts available against exporter Oman Fasteners for filing submitted 16 minutes late. The result is a zero percent margin for the company as part of the sixth antidumping review on steel nails from Oman. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld Commerce's use of Oman Fasteners' quarterly costs and not annual costs in calculating the company's cost of production, as well as its decision not to deduct Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from the U.S. price for all of Oman's entries.