The Court of International Trade remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the fifth administrative review of the countervailing duty order on crystaline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, in a Sept. 3 order. Judge Jane Restani sustained Commerce's specificity finding for the aluminum extrusions for less than adequate remuneration (LTAR) program, the agency's chosen benchmark for the land value for the LTAR program, and plaintiff and mandatory respondent Canadian Solar's lack of creditworthiness in 2016. Conversely, the judge remanded Commerce's entered value adjustment finding for Canadian Solar and its determination that the respondents benefited from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.
Russell Semmel, former Arent Fox attorney, joined international law firm Bryan Cave's New York office as counsel in the International Trade Practice, the firm announced Aug. 30. With more than a decade of experience, Semmel will continue to advise importers on issues of “tariff classification and valuation; free trade agreements and preference programs; country of origin and marking; drawback; seizures and forfeitures; civil customs penalties; antidumping and countervailing duties; and other laws and regulations enforced by" CBP, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission, Bryan Cave said.
Tariff rate quotas of 30% imposed in 2018 under a global safeguard tariff against solar cells and solar panels were legal under international trade law, a panel at the World Trade Organization announced. The Section 201 tariffs fell to 25%, then 20%, and were supposed to fall to 15% in 2021, but are at 18% instead (see 1711010040 and 2010130028).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 3 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Aluminum extrusion producer Kingtom Aluminio's move for partial access under a protective order in an Aug. 27 filing to file additional affidavits and a brief in support of its motion to intervene in an antidumping duty evasion case met with light resistance from the U.S. and defendant-intervenor. Needing the go-ahead from the Court of International Trade, Kingtom also filed for an extension of time to submit its response (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC, et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. 21-00198).
The record doesn't support the claim that the Commerce Department erred by applying constructed value instead of plaintiff Z.A. Sea Foods Private Limited's third-country sales data to Vietnam when calculating normal value in an antidumping review, the Justice Department said in a Sept. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to ZASF's motion for judgment, DOJ said that instead, record evidence actually shows that Commerce reasonably found that ZASF's sales to its Vietnamese customers were not representative, given evidence showing that the customers were processors and exporters of shrimp to the U.S. market (Z.A. Sea Foods Private Limited et al v. United States, CIT #21-00031).
Tapered roller bearing importer Wanxiang America Corporation does not have jurisdiction to challenge guidance issued from the Commerce Department to CBP on the assessment of antidumping duties, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Sept. 2 decision upholding a ruling from the Court of International Trade. Jurisdiction under the court's residual jurisdiction, Section 1581(i), cannot be claimed by "creative pleading," and proper jurisdiction for Wanxiang America's case could have been claimed elsewhere based on the "true nature of the action," the court said. The Federal Circuit pointed to a CIT's denied protest jurisdiction under Section 1581(a), and antidumping and countervailing duty challenge jurisdiction under Section 1581(c), as potential jurisdictional homes for the action.
The Court of International Trade remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department's final results in the fifth administrative review on the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China in a Sept. 3 order. The court sustained Commerce's findings that the specificity finding for the aluminum extrusions for less than adequate remuneration program, the agency's chosen benchmark for the land for LTAR program and plaintiff Canadian Solar's lack of creditworthiness in 2016. Judge Jane Restani remanded Commerce's entered value adjustment, or lack thereof, for Canadian Solar's imports under review and determination that the mandatory respondents benefited from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Sept. 2 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
Plaintiff and defendant-intervenor OCP S.A. wants a statutory injunction on the liquidation of all of its entries, even those beyond the period of review for the contested countervailing duty investigation, pushing back against the government's arguments in a Sept. 1 brief. The U.S. contested that OCP satisfied the "irreparable harm" standard required of injunction motions since the "threat of liquidation" from entries beyond the first period of review "is too far in the future" (The Mosaic Company, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #21-00116).