The Court of International Trade dismissed two cases brought by steel importer Voestalpine USA and steel purchaser Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel seeking to retroactively apply a Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion that was originally issued with a clerical error. Judge Mark Barnett said that the plaintiffs did not seek any relief that the court could grant since the entries eligible for the exclusion had already been liquidated, and the court does not have the power to order their reliquidation.
The Court of International Trade in a May 19 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case over the 2016 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovolvatic cells from China. In the most recent decision, the trade court sent back five elements of the review: Commerce's benchmark calculation for aluminum extrusions, the agency's benchmark determination for solar grade polysilicon, Commerce's use of adverse facts available in its specificity finding for the provision of subsidized electricity, the decision not to grant an entered value adjustment for Canadian Solar and its position on China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.
The Court of International Trade in a May 19 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the antidumping administrative review into passenger vehicle and light truck tires, finding that tire exporter Pirelli Tyre Co. rebutted the presumption of Chinese government control for the first 10 months of the review. Pirelli was bought by Chinese company Chem China 10 months into the review, but Commerce originally held that Pirelli was owned by the Chinese government for the entire review. On remand, the agency said that Chem China didn't own Pirelli for the first 10 months, giving the exporter a 1.45% dumping rate for this period.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices May 18 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Semi-finished trash can components imported by Hans-Mill are still subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on stainless steel sheet and strip from China, even though they are coated, cut to size and drilled, the Commerce Department said in a scope ruling issued May 9.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 16 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Judge Gary Katzmann of the Court of International Trade approved a May 14 motion by TR International Trading Company to make its ongoing case a test case and suspend two similar cases under the proceeding (Thatcher Company v. United States, CIT No. 20-00067, 21-cv-00357).
The Canadian Government, along with its other plaintiffs in a countervailing duty case, will appeal a March Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's positions on all five issues under contention in a dispute involving wind towers from Canada. According to the May 16 notice of appeal, the Canadian Government, along with the Government of Quebec, Marmen Inc., Marmen Energie and Marmen Energy Co., will take their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (The Government of Quebec v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-00168).
South Korean exporter Husteel Co. challenged the Commerce Department's decision to use one antidumping duty mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit. Filing its complaint on May 16 at the Court of International Trade, Husteel, a non-examined company in the relevant AD review, also argued that Commerce violated the law in its application of neutral facts available over the calculation of one of the respondent's U.S. affiliate's yield loss on further manufacturing operations (Husteel Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #22-00143).