Eight models of GoPro Hero camera housings are properly classified as camera cases under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 4202 and not parts, the government said in a Dec. 9 motion at the Court of International Trade. The brief opposed GoPro's Aug. 5 motion for summary judgment, in which the company argued the housings were duty-free parts under heading 8529 because the cameras cannot fulfill their primary hands-free function without them (see 2208080041). DOJ has asked the court to deny GoPro's motion and grant its own, which would dismiss the case (GoPro v. United States, CIT #20-00176).
Each one of the Commerce Department's four findings challenged in a countervailing duty case challenge is legal and should be sustained, the U.S. argued in a Dec. 9 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The government claimed Commerce's decision not to rely on respondent Marmen Energie's auditor's adjustment was reasonable; the agency reasonably found the additional depreciation for various Class 1 assets conferred a countervailable benefit to Marmen; Commerce's calculation of Marmen's benefit for a tax credit program legally did not include the income tax effects of benefits under the program for past years; and the agency reasonably said that Quebec's on-the-job tax credit program is de facto specific (Quebec v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1807).
The use of adverse facts available in an antidumping duty investigation against one party based on data submitted by another party is illegal, Brazilian honey producer Supermel argued in a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. The Commerce Department did not have the legal authority to ask Supermel to verify its data against information submitted by an unaffiliated beekeeper, even though Supermel's data was "in fact, reliable and verified," the brief said (Apiario Diamente Comercial Exportadora v. United States, CIT #22-00185).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 13 confidential opinion sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a case concerning the antidumping duty investigation on fabricated structural steel from Mexico. After Judge Claire Kelly remanded the case, Commerce stuck by its methodology used to calculate profit for the constructed value of respondent Building Systems de Mexico, also dropping the use of adverse facts available for one unreportable sale (see 2207210034). The agency further used the date of substantial completion of a fabricated structural steel project as the date of sale rather than using the purchase order date or sales order acknowledgment date, and didn't exclude the operating results of the business unit in question from the calculation of the constructed export price profit rate. Kelly gave the parties until Dec. 20 to review the confidential information in the opinion with the hopes of releasing the public version of the opinion Dec. 21 (Building Systems de Mexico v. United States, CIT #20-00069).
The Commerce Department illegally used adverse facts available for exporter SeAH Steel Corp.'s alleged benefits under the Export-Import Bank of Korea's (KEXIM's) Performance Guarantee program, SeAH argued in a Dec. 13 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce improperly based its decision on its treatment of information related to the performance guarantee program presented at verification as "new factual information," the brief said (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT #22-00338).
The Commerce Department withdrew exporter Jiangsu Guyu International Trading Co. as a mandatory respondent in a countervailing duty administrative review on remand at the Court of International Trade after reviewing CBP data the agency used in its respondent selection process. After it was ordered by the trade court to look into very large entry volumes, Commerce accepted the explanation that these entries would take an unrealistic number of containers. Due to this, the agency dropped these entries from its respondent selection process and found that Jiangsu Guyu is no longer one of the two exporters that ship the most volume of the subject merchandise. The result, if sustained, would be a 6% decrease in the CVD rate for the non-selected companies (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03885).
CBP failed to pay a refund of Section 301 duties to Sonos for imports of wireless speakers and audio components for which exclusions had been granted, the importer argued in a Dec. 9 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Due to this alleged failure, Sonos is seeking over $229,000 in refunds of the Section 301 duties paid (Sonos v. U.S., CIT #22-00337).
The only way importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, could have properly challenged a CBP decision on its entries, according to the Court of International Trade, was to file a "[p]remature, overly broad, or indefinite" protest, SIS argued in a Dec. 6 supplemental brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. But these types of protests "do not constitute a proper basis for invoking CIT jurisdiction," the importer claimed, citing a prior Federal Circuit ruling (Acquisition 362 v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1161).
Importer Meyer Corp. in a Dec. 9 motion asked for a status conference on how to proceed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded its suit over the use of first sale valuation. Since the U.S. failed to respond to Meyer's attempts at contact over a joint status conference request, the importer unliterally sent in the motion, outlining two possible ways forward in the case: court-annexed mediation and retrial, both of which could help "avoid an unwieldy and unnecessarily complicated proceeding" (Meyer Corp. v. U.S., CIT #13-00154).