The U.S. opened a customs penalty suit on Jan. 8 against importers Skyline International and Skyline Brands, along with their owner Zainulabedin Subhani, alleging that the three defendants undervalued their entries of household merchandise. The government is seeking a penalty totaling over $3.4 million for the defendants' alleged fraud along with a judgment of over $447,000, which represents the duties avoided by the defendants (United States v. Skyline International, CIT # 26-00295).

The Commerce Department reasonably used the Thailand Board of Investment's Cost of Doing Business in Thailand 2023 report as a benchmark to determine the benefit for Vietnam's "Exemption or Reduction of Rents for Encouraged Industries" subsidy, the Court of International Trade held on Jan. 8.

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 8 sustained the Commerce Department's overhead ratio calculations following a remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit regarding the agency's treatment of energy and manufacturing overhead costs in the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China.

In oral argument held Jan. 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit indicated that it preferred the government’s stricter interpretation of the statute governing automatic liquidation of drawback claims over an importer’s more expansive one (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 8 held that domestic sales, "in certain circumstances, may qualify as the basis for using transaction value as an appraisement method." CAFC Judges Sharon Prost and Tiffany Cunningham, along with U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware Judge Richard Andrews, held that the Court of International Trade got it right when it said the transaction value statute, 19 U.S.C. 1401a(b)(1), doesn't require an "international sale or a sale abroad to have occurred for a sale of merchandise to be considered as a sale 'for exportation to the United States.'"

Perkins Coie offered its initial defense in a malpractice suit against the firm relating to its representation of exporter Oman Fasteners in various antidumping duty and countervailing duty proceedings.

The Commerce Department erred in determining that U.S. seafood seller Luscious Seafood didn't make a "bona fide" sale of the domestic like product as part of an antidumping duty review on Vietnamese frozen fish fillets, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Jan. 6.

Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

A recent antidumping petition on fresh winter strawberries from Mexico highlights a rarely used provision of the antidumping statute that allows the International Trade Commission to narrow the injury analysis to only a particular region in the U.S. Trade lawyers told us that there's clear statutory authority for a regional injury petition, but that the analysis may require a more pervasive showing of injury throughout the affected industry than an ordinary, nationwide injury analysis.

Plywood importer InterGlobal Forest, which is seeking a rehearing of its case challenging CBP’s finding that it evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on plywood from China, said Jan. 2 that the government’s response to its motion for reconsideration (see 2512150042) “ignores” its “substantive arguments that the Government is required to complete the administrative record” and “fails to refute IGF’s argument that there has been a manifest injustice in this case” (American Pacific Plywood v. United States, CIT Consol. # 20-03914).