The Court of International Trade on Dec. 16 for a second time remanded the Commerce Department's scope ruling excluding certain carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings made from Chinese fittings that underwent production in Vietnam from the scope of the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said two of the (k)(1) sources used by Commerce, the International Trade Commission report and AD petition, don't support the agency's conclusion. The judge instructed Commerce to review the (k)(2) sources, including the "applicable industry standards" and "declarations from domestic industry executives." Choe-Groves also remanded the agency's substantial transformation analysis to determine the goods at issue's country of origin.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 15 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 8 issued a statutory injunction against the liquidation of any unliquidated entries of importer IPG Photonics' heat sink models, while the importer challenges the Commerce Department's antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders scope ruling on IPG's products (IPG Photonics v. United States, CIT # 25-00212).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's surrogate value pick for ocean freight charges and its valuation of minor fabricated components in the antidumping duty investigation on mobile access equipment from China. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld the agency's decisions as reasonable after initially remanding both selections.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 12 denied the government's motion for reconsideration of the trade court's previous decision to vacate CBP's finding that Dominican exporter Kingtom Aluminio made its aluminum extrusions with forced labor. Although Judge Timothy Reif said he made a mistake of fact in the initial decision, the mistake was a "harmless error," and that no mistake of law was made.
The Commerce Department interpreted and applied its regulations contrary to Section 751(h) of the Tariff Act of 1930 when it rejected petitioner Catfish Farmers of America's ministerial error allegation in an antidumping review, the Court of International Trade held on Dec. 15. Judge Timothy Stanceu said Commerce erred in only allowing the petitioner to raise ministerial error allegations regarding the final determination that couldn't have been raised in the petitioner's case brief, finding that this cut against the "express requirement of Section 751(h)." However, the judge did uphold the agency's decision not to use facts otherwise available against respondent CASEAMEX related to its reporting of its packing costs.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 12 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. moved to toss a group of importers' counterclaims in a customs penalty case for failure to identify a proper "jurisdictional grant or cause of action," arguing that the companies should have raised their claims before the Commerce Department first (United States v. Lexjet, CIT # 23-00105).
The Court of International Trade "rewrote" a precedential decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and "effectively nullified" three AD/CVD orders on magnesia carbon bricks (MCBs) from China when it held that MCBs that contain any amount of alumina are excluded from the orders, the Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee said (Fedmet Resources v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 26-1160).