Parties Settle 2022 Steel Imports Case Regarding Denial of 45 Tariff Exclusion Requests
The U.S. and importer Mirror Metals filed a stipulated judgment on agreed facts in which the government agreed not to apply 25% Section 232 tariffs to the importer’s steel articles (Mirror Metals v. United States, CIT #21-00144).
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Mirror Metals had previously submitted 45 exclusion requests to the Commerce Department for the products, all of which were rejected. After a remand by the Court of International Trade, the department reversed course on all of them (see 2111190056).
The importer alleged in its 2022 case that the department had denied the exclusion requests “with no reasoning or analysis” (see 2204190016). Commerce also had engaged in “undocumented, ex parte communications” with three domestic producers who had objected to the requests, it claimed.
Without admitting liability, the parties agreed to settle all of the importers’ claims and have CBP liquidate several dozen of the importer’s entries entered between 2018 and 2019 without applying the tariffs. Mirror Metals’ previous payments will be refunded, the filing said.