Solar panel mounts made by China Custom Manufacturing do not qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a March 2 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade, judges Pauline Newman, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham said the matter is "governed squarely" by the appellate court's ruling in Shenyang Yuanda Aluminum Indus. Eng'g Co. v. U.S., which said a "part or subassembly ... cannot be a finished product."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 24 order stayed a conflict-of-interest suit against the Commerce Department brought by Amsted Rail Co. involving its former counsel, pending resolution of a related matter against the International Trade Commission currently at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Judge Gary Katzmann said that resolution of the related case will likely be controlling on the issues in the present action (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00316).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 24 denied plaintiff Norca Industrial's motion to reconsider the trade court's order staying proceedings of an Enforce and Protect Act case pending resolution of a covered merchandise referral to the Commerce Department. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves denied the order after holding a status conference the same day (Norca Industrial Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00192).
The Commerce Department failed in its obligation to calculate an accurate rate for a Kazakh exporter in a countervailing duty investigation when it unjustifiably rejected the exporter's questionnaire response, despite the response being only two hours late, the exporter, Tau-Ken Temir, said in the opening brief of its appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Tau-Ken Temir v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 27 decision denied importer Crown Cork & Seal USA's bid to dismiss fraud and gross negligence claims in a customs penalty case. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that, contrary to Crown Cork's characterization, the fraud claim is sufficiently specific and both claims clear the notice requirements of Rule 8 as set in the Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal cases.
The Court of International Trade rejected the Commerce Department's imposition of a total adverse facts available rate of 154.33% on antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners as the result of one 16-minutes-late submission, in a Feb. 15 opinion made public Feb. 27. Judge M. Miller Baker said the lawsuit was "not a close case," blasting Commerce's inadequate explanation for why one late submission due to a filing difficulty was enough to conclude that Oman Fasteners failed to cooperate to the best of its ability or why the company deserved the punitive rate.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's interpretation of the Major Inputs Rule to allow for the use of third-country surrogate data as "information available" for determining the cost of production of a major input a respondent bought from an affiliated non-market economy-based supplier.
The Commerce Department adequately addressed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's concerns over its use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping, the Court of International Trade held in a Feb. 24 opinion sustaining use of the test in an antidumping duty investigation.