The Court of International Trade on Aug. 21 upheld the Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government's free provision of port usage rights at the Port of Incheon provided a countervailable benefit for exporter Hyundai Steel. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that Commerce reasonably found it should conduct a revenue forgone analysis instead of a less than adequate remuneration analysis since Hyundai's non-payment of port usage fees involved a "type of financial contribution from revenue foregone" instead of the provision of services.
Statements from CBP employees that they witnessed the destruction of documents during a site visit as part of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on importer Aspects Furniture International, as well as other discrepancies found in many of Aspects' entry documents, justified "wholesale adverse inferences against all" of the importers entries, the Court of International Trade ruled on Aug. 22.
The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 23 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's 2018-19 review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Turkey. Judge Jane Restani said Commerce legally deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid by exporter Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi from its U.S. price. Noksel argued the government, by increasing the duties solely for goods from Turkey, distinguished the duties from the other Section 232 tariffs. Restani saw "no reason to vary" from past court rulings on this point. The judge also rejected Noksel's bid for a duty drawback adjustment.
The statute of limitations for CBP to collect on customs bonds runs six years from the date of the underlying entry's liquidation, not from the date that CBP demanded payment, the Court of International Trade said in an opinion released publicly on Aug. 22, rejecting CBP's bid to collect on a 20-year-old customs bond.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 22 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department unlawfully broke with past practice by relying on raw honey acquisition costs as a proxy to calculate costs of production in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from India, a lawyer for the American Honey Producers Association and the Sioux Honey Association argued during oral arguments at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 16 (American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., CIT # 22-00195).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential Aug. 21 opinion again sent back the Commerce Department's decision not to investigate the alleged off-peak sale of electricity below cost as part of the 2018 review of the countervailing duty order on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from South Korea. Judge Mark Barnett also remanded for a second time the agency's decision not to treat POSCO Plantec, an affiliate of respondent POSCO, as a cross-owned input supplier of POSCO regarding the supply of scrap (Nucor Corp. v. United States, CIT # 21-00182).
The Commerce Department failed to consider the "reliance interests" of antidumping petitioners led by Bonney Forge Co. when sticking by its decision to find that questionnaires issued in lieu of on-site verification satisfied the statute's requirement for verification, the Court of International Trade ruled on Aug. 21. Judge Stephen Vaden said that while past practice "is not an inescapable straitjacket," an agency must put a "reasoned explanation on the record" in compliance with the rules established by the Supreme Court in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California.
The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 22 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision on remand to find that hardwood plywood made by the Vietnam Finewood Co. using two-ply panels imported into Vietnam from China is outside the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. Judge Mark Barnett said that the scope decision complies with his previous order instructing Commerce to issue a scope ruling in line with the "unambiguous terms" of the orders' scope.