Howard Buskirk

The Commerce Department should have applied adverse facts to a Korean oil country tubular goods respondent for "failing" to provide information that the department did not request and the government's claim that it so is "demonstrably false," SeAH Steel said in a June 27 response brief at the Court of International Trade (SeAH Steel v. U.S., CIT # 22-00338).

The government incorrectly claimed that there are two separate jurisdictional paths for contesting Enforce and Protect Act decisions, appellants Ascension Chemicals, UMD Solutions, Crude Chem Technology and Glob Energy Corp. argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (All One God Faith v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1078).

The Court of International Trade granted importer Global Invacom's bid to dismiss its customs suit on the classification of its low noise blocks and switches. The company argued that the items should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 8517.69.00 or 8517.70.00, free of duty, which provides for "transmission apparatus for radio-broadcasting." CBP classified them under subheading 8525.50.30 as "transmission apparatus for radio-broadcasting or television, whether or not incorporating reception apparatus or sound recording or reproducing apparatus; television cameras, digital cameras and video camera recorders: Transmission apparatus: Television: Other," dutiable at 1.8%, 1.3% or 0.9%. In 2020, the trade court sided with the U.S. in a customs spat concerning the terms in headings 8517 and 8525 and the classification of printed circuit board assemblies (Global Invacom v. United States, CIT # 21-00261).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected importer PrimeSource Building Products' bid to stay the court's issuance of its mandate in a suit over President Donald Trump's move to expand Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs onto derivative products. The court ruled that the president legally imposed the tariffs, which were set beyond procedural time limits, and recently rejected PrimeSource's request for a reconsideration of the opinion (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 21-2066).

Antidumping respondents led by Z.A. Sea Foods (ZASF) mischaracterized the record when arguing in favor of the Court of International Trade's rejection of the Commerce Department's finding that ZASF's third country sales to Vietnam were not representative of the company's sales in the third country market, petitioner Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee said in a reply brief. The petitioner told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the trade court illegally reweighed the evidence on ZASF's Vietnamese sales, usurping Commerce's authority in the AD review on frozen warmwater shrimp from India (Z.A. Sea Foods Private Ltd. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1469).

Importer Tokyo Ohka Kogyo America filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on June 26 to contest the tariff classification of its photoresists and other chemical products for photographic uses. The suit concerns two different protests filed with CBP, one brought before the agency in 2008 and the other in 2009, though both were denied in 2017. The case on the two protests was severed in 2021 from a separate court action also brought by Tokyo Ohka Kogyo. The company is claiming that CBP improperly classified the merchandise under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 3707.90.32, dutiable at 3.2%, claiming that the goods instead should have been classified under subheading 3707.10.00, dutiable at 3% (Tokyo Ohka Kogyo America v. United States, CIT # 21-00371).

Pop-up tents designed for backpacking should be duty-free "backpacking tents" instead of other" tents, Ohio-based tent importer Under the Weather (UTW) said in its June 23 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The company is challenging CBP's classification of its imported tents at a higher duty rate than the company had used for eight years and despite an earlier protest approval that seemed to have affirmed UTW's preferred classification (Under the Weather v. U.S., CIT # 21-00211).

Lawyers from both Norca Engineered Products and DOJ tried to convince Court of International Trade Judge Jane Restani that their preferred definition of "backhoe" was the correct one, during June 23 oral arguments (Norca Engineered Products v. U.S., CIT # 21-00305).

Greek exporter Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry and importer CPW America Co. will appeal a Court of International Trade opinion upholding the use of total adverse facts available due to Corinth's reported costs not being reconciled to its normal books and records. Per the notice of appeal, the exporter will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. At the trade court, Judge Leo Gordon said the law does not require Commerce to respond to Corinth's claims on its use of total AFA, which the agency used in the first instance in the final results of the AD review on large diameter welded pipe from Greece (see 2305010054). The result was a 41.04% margin for Corinth (Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry v. United States, CIT # 22-00063).

Separate rate antidumping duty respondent Dalian Hualing Wood moved for judgment, arguing that the Commerce Department violated the law when it carried out a bona fide analysis of Dalian, the company said in its June 22 motion. Commerce compounded the error by treating Hualing's sale as non-bona fide in the AD review while treating it as bona fide in the CVD review, Hualing said. "The same sale cannot be bona fide in one proceeding and not the other -- statutory criteria apply to both ADD and CVD proceedings" (Dalian Hualing Wood Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00334).