The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on June 28 in a countervailing duty case over Indian exporter Uttam Galva's failure to report an affiliated cross-owned company. In a May opinion, the Federal Circuit said that the Commerce Department properly used adverse facts available, resulting in a 588.43% CVD rate, over the failure to report the affiliate in the CVD review on corrosion-resistant steel products from India. The court said the exporter didn't show that the affiliated company's financial statement could rebut the inclusion of 20 subsidy programs supposedly given to it, permitting the subsidies' inclusion in Uttam Galva's rate (Uttam Galva Steels Limited v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2119).
The Court of International Trade in a June 28 order consolidated four antidumping duty cases concerning whether the Commerce Department can use one antidumping mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit. The cases, brought by lead plaintiffs Hyundai Steel Co., AJU Besteel Co., Nexteel Co. and Husteel Co., all challenge the same final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea.
The Office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts dropped its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case against Richard Boncy, a businessman and former Haitian ambassador-at-large, and Joseph Baptiste, a Haitian-American businessman. Filing a motion to dismiss a few days before the case's second trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the U.S. said that given the court's earlier decision vacating past convictions and the loss of recordings potentially containing exculpatory information, the case should be tossed. Judge Allison Burroughs dismissed the case in a text-only order June 28 (U.S. v. Roger Richard Boncy, D. Mass. #17-10305).
The Court of International Trade should rule that all 14 frozen fruit mixtures imported into the U.S. from Canada by Nature's Touch are properly classified under duty-free subheading 2106.90.98 as “Food preparations not elsewhere specified or included,” Nature's Touch said in a June 27 brief in support of its April 18 motion for summary judgment (see 2204190052) (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West). v. U.S., CIT #20-00131).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should grant exporter Borusan Mannesmann's motion for summary affirmance in its case over whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test, Borusan argued in a June 24 letter. Since the appellate court held Borusan's case in abeyance pending a petition for writ of certiorari from the court's decision in Hyundai Steel Co. v. U.S. and no such petition was filed, the court should grant the affirmance motion, the brief said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1502).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade should not grant Nucor Corporation's stay motion in a countervailing duty case because Nucor has not shown that a stay would facilitate an efficient resolution of the case or conserve the court's resources or that "any duplication of efforts outweighs the detrimental effects of its requested indefinite stay," the U.S. argued in a June 24 reply brief (Nucor Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00070).
The Court of International Trade granted importer DS Services of America's motion for a preliminary injunction in its case seeking to reinstate a previously granted exclusion from Section 301 China duties for water coolers classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8418.69.0120. The court's order suspends the liquidation of the plaintiff's unliquidated entries while allowing the U.S. to continue to collect Section 301 duties, as the injunction is structured like a statutory injunction routinely entered in antidumping and countervailing duty cases (DS Services of America v. United States, CIT #22-00157).
Importer Global Aluminum Distributor in a June 24 reply brief dropped its opposition to defendant-intervenor Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee's bid to lift the stay order at the Court of International Trade in an Enforce and Protect Act case looking into aluminum extrusions from China. The action was brought by H&E Home and Classic Metals Suppliers, later joined by Global Aluminum as a consolidated plaintiff, to contest the CBP's finding that the plaintiffs were evading the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions by transshipping them through the Dominican Republic. The case was stayed pending the resolution in another matter brought by Global Aluminum over CBP's evasion finding (H&E Home v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00337).