The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer Strategic Import Supply will appeal an April Court of International Trade ruling that found that the 180-day deadline for CBP protests runs from the date of liquidation, rather than the date CBP received updated assessment instructions from the Commerce Department (see 2104210066). Per a Nov. 11 notice of appeal, Stragetic Import Supply will take its case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The importer challenged CBP's assessment of countervailing duties on its imports of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. Judge Stephen Vaden dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the 180-day protest deadline is not extended even after Commerce amended the rates set in the relevant CV duty administrative review (Acquisition 362, LLC dba Strategic Import Supply v. United States, CIT #20-03762).
CBP continued to find that Leco Supply Co. continued to evade antidumping and countervailing duties on wire hangers from Vietnam, after voluntarily requesting a remand from the Court of International Trade to reconsider the case. Submitting its results in a Nov. 10 filing at CIT, CBP included information not previously considered in its determination and also released revised public summaries of the business confidential information (BCI), in line with a recent CIT decision (Leco Supply, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00136).
The Commerce Department continued to find the all-others rate in an antidumping investigation by averaging a respondent's zero percent margin and the large China-wide adverse facts available rate, despite the most recent Court of International Trade opinion ruling against this position. Submitting its fourth remand results to CIT, Commerce said that it had to stick with this method for finding the all-others rate due to the scarcity and inadequacy of the alternatives (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #18-00002).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. 12 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Antidumping petitioner American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance voiced its support for the Commerce Department's remand results in Nov.10 comments submitted to the Court of International Trade. After CIT remanded the case to Commerce for its failure to address the concerns of the mandatory respondent, the agency returned with a more thorough backing of its surrogate financial ratio decision that it believes adequately addresses the respondent's concerns (see 2110130053) (The Ancientree Cabinet Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT # 20-00114).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Nov. 10 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Court of International Trade granted on Nov. 9 a voluntary remand motion from the Commerce Department to reconsider the terms of an alleged benefit conferred to a countervailing duty review respondent. In particular, Commerce will reconsider a South Korean government program relating to the payments of sewerage fees that allegedly gave respondent Hyundai Steel Co.a countervailable benefit. The case concerns the 2018 CVD administrative review of cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea. Commerce said it wants to reconsider the sewerage fees program since it learned more about the program when conducting the 2019 CVD review of the same goods (see 2111080050). The agency has 90 days to reconsider its position (Hyundai Steel Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00012).
The Court of International Trade should remand the Commerce Department's particular market situation adjustment to an exporter's constructed value, the exporter, Garg Tube Export, argued in a Nov. 8 brief at CIT. Substantial evidence does not support Commerce's evidence of a PMS existing, so the holding should be remanded, Garg Tube said. Though Commerce correctly reversed its PMS adjustment to its sales-below-cost test for some Garg Tube products on a first remand, the agency should not have found a PMS existed at all for Garg Tube, the exporter said.
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