The Commerce Department legally levied adverse facts available related to China's Export Buyer's Credit Program and applied a 17% value-added tax rate in calculating the benchmark for the Chinese government's provision of primary aluminum for less than adequate remuneration, countervailing duty petitioner Aluminum Association Common Alloy Aluminum Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group argued (Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00290).
The government’s position in a case regarding substitution unused merchandise drawback for aircraft parts would lead to "absurd results" if upheld, presenting a "significant risk of manipulation or unintended results" arising from changes in statistical language in the tariff schedule if the court agrees with DOJ's interpretation of the drawback statute, importer Spirit Aerosystems said in an Aug. 18 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Spirit Aerosystems v. U.S., CIT # 20-00094).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Exporter Oman Fasteners is drafting its own petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the U.S. in the case on then-President Donald Trump's expansion of the Section 232 duties to include steel and aluminum "derivative" products. In an Aug. 21 letter to the high court, counsel for Oman Fasteners said that as a plaintiff-appellee aligned with importer PrimeSource Building Products -- the lead appellee in the suit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit -- it supports PrimeSource's cause and will file a brief "within the timeframe permitted" by the law and the court's rules (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Sup. Ct. # 23-69).
A CBP Center of Excellence and Expertise improperly classified an imported organometallic substance, then compounded its own classification error by taking too long to forward an application for further review of the protest to CBP headquarters so that CBP HQ was unable to weigh in, importer Lanxess said in an Aug. 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Lanxess Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00073).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in an Aug. 21 summary order affirmed a New York district court's dismissal of Brutus Trading's qui tam False Claims Act against Standard Chartered, which accused the financial firm of facilitating illegal banking transactions on behalf of sanctioned parties. After Brutus filed the qui tam case, in which a party with evidence of fraud against the U.S. government can file a lawsuit on behalf of the government, the U.S. then moved to toss the matter after finding that the "factual allegations were unsupported," the legal theory "was not cognizable, and the continuation of the suit would waste considerable government resources" (Brutus Trading v. Standard Chartered Bank, 2nd Cir. # 20-2578).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 22 upheld the Commerce Department's exclusion of hardwood plywood made by Vietnam Finewood using two-ply panels imported into Vietnam from China from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. Judge Mark Barnett in an Aug. 22 opinion said the move was in line with his prior order instructing the agency to "issue a scope ruling consistent with the unambiguous terms" of the orders' scope.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that MTS Logistics, a New York-based non-vessel operating common carrier, is not liable to Turkish manufacturing firm Saray Dokum ve Madeni Aksam Sanayi Turizm for 1,534,000 kg of S-PVC Resin Formosa Formolon 622. Saray said MTS failed to deliver the Resin it bought from Oxyde Chemicals to Istanbul from Houston as provided for in two bills of lading issued by MTS (Saray Dokum ve Madeni Aksam Sanayi Turizm v. MTS Logistics, S.D.N.Y. # 17-07495).
The Commerce Department unlawfully broke with past practice by relying on raw honey acquisition costs as a proxy to calculate costs of production in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from India, a lawyer for the American Honey Producers Association and the Sioux Honey Association argued during oral arguments at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 16 (American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., CIT # 22-00195).