The U.S. and an importer of tapered roller bearings said in a Nov. 14 status report that they have reached a settlement agreement. The government brought its case against the importer seeking $97 million for unpaid antidumping duties (United States v. Wanxiang America Corp., CIT # 22-00205).
In a Nov. 14 complaint, a cased pencils importer said CBP wrongly determined its novelty pencils were of Chinese origin and liquidated them at a 114.9% antidumping duty rate, having based its finding on an unrelated company-specific scope ruling (Raymond Geddes & Company v. United States, CIT # 25-00265).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 17 sustained the Commerce Department's decision not to attribute subsidies received by Nur, an affiliated input supplier of countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir, to Kaptan in the 2018 CVD review of Turkish rebar. Juges Raymond Chen, Richard Linn and Todd Hughes held that the Court of International Trade didn't abuse its discretion in initially remanding the review. They said that Commerce properly found that the "unprocessed steel scrap" provided by Nur "was a common input used in a variety of products and industries" and that "Nur’s business activities were not dedicated almost exclusively to the production of a higher value-added product."
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 granted default judgment against importer Rago Tires for negligence in importing tires by not declaring the goods as subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese truck and bus tires. Judge Joseph Laroski ordered Rago to pay a $14,108.87 penalty.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 held that the deadline for filing a complaint isn't a jurisdictional issue. As a result, Judge Richard Eaton said he had the power to vacate the dismissal of a case from various exporters in an antidumping duty case, which was issued due to the exporters' failure to timely file a complaint.
Petitioner Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's exclusion of seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China (see 2510090016). The trade court said the exclusion of the bricks comports with a 2014 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which led to the standard that the addition of any amount of alumina to a magnesia carbon brick excludes it from the orders. The case was filed by Fedmet to contest the scope ruling, which came after a referral in an AD/CVD evasion case, on 11 of Fedmet's brick types. After CIT initially remanded the case to address the CAFC ruling, Commerce said seven of Fedmet's brick types are excluded from the order, since they have a non-zero alumina content (Fedmet Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00117).
In a Nov. 11 motion for judgment, a wind tower petitioner said that the Commerce Department’s administrative review of the antidumping duty order on South Korean utility-scale wind towers wrongly failed to adjust a respondent’s conversion costs and erred in constructing the respondent’s value using, in part, information dating back to when that respondent wasn’t profitable (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT # 25-00104).
The Commerce Department erred in picking Germany as the comparison market for determining antidumping duty respondent Prochamp's normal value in the AD investigation on mushrooms from the Netherlands, petitioner Giorgio Foods told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in its opening brief. Giorgio contested the four bases on which Commerce made its decision to use Germany as the comparison market, arguing that each isn't backed by substantial evidence (Giorgio Foods v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-2090).
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 granted the government's motion for default judgment in a customs penalty suit against importer Rago Tires, imposing a $14,108.87 civil penalty against the company. Judge Joseph Laroski found that Rago violated customs laws "by means of negligence" and not gross negligence, as the U.S. argued. The judge said that although the company's filing error, in which it failed to declare its goods were subject to antidumping and countervailing duties, was "material," the facts don't show "willful, wanton, or reckless misconduct."