The Court of International Trade on Jan. 30 rejected importer Spirit Aerosystems' claim that the "preceding indented text" to any 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading should be read as part of the article description for purposes of claiming a substituted unused merchandise drawback. Spirit's had argued its 10-digit subheading begin with the superior text "For use in civil aircraft" as opposed to "other," avoiding a prohibition on unused merchandise drawback for HTS subheadings that begin with the word "other." But Judge Claire Kelly said the "plain meaning" of the drawback statute refers to the words adjacent to the 10-digit number and not the superior indented text, and that Congress meant to exclude article descriptions with the word "other" to eliminate the need for CBP to find on a case-by-case basis whether goods are sufficiently similar to be eligible for drawback.

The Court of International Trade granted in part and denied in part the government’s motion to bar a wristwatch exporter from using certain supplemental discovery materials that were filed late -- a set of photographs and samples of crystals used in some of the watches -- in any further proceedings. The court barred Ildico from using the photographs, saying the exporter had not made a “sufficiently diligent” search for them earlier. Judge Jane Restani allowed continued use of the sample crystals for now but said she was “mystified” by the actions of both parties (Ildico Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 18-00136).

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 25 denied a U.S. motion to dismiss a customs case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, finding a protest with CBP was not needed for importer Fraserview Remanufacturing's 80 entries that were deemed liquidated despite a Commerce Department order suspending liquidation. Judge Timothy Reif said that because the statute for deemed liquidation requires the entries to not be suspended, the notices of deemed liquidation did not actually liquidate the entries. As a result, relief at the court was not available under Section 1581(a) but was available under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction.

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China. Judge M. Miller Baker relied on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Al Ghurair Iron & Steel v. U.S. to reject claims from exporters HLDS (B) Steel and HLD Clark Steel Pipe against Commerce's comparison of their production of oil pipe in Brunei and the Philippines to the production of hot-rolled steel, an oil piping input, in China. The Federal Circuit already found that Commerce can make the comparison because the agency indicated what part of the total value of the goods subject to the inquiries is accounted for by the last step of processing and found that the level of investment is much greater for the production of hot-rolled steel than for oil piping, Baker noted.

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 19 granted a stipulation of facts and joint motion for judgment from importer SGS Sports and the U.S. in a customs spat on the classification of reimported swimsuits. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that, per the stipulation of facts, SGS Sports' entries qualify for duty-free treatment under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9801.00.20.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 19 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's final remand results in a case on the countervailing duty investigation of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. Judge Jane Restani upheld Commerce's decision use of exporter PhosAgro's profit before tax calculation rather than its gross profit figure in its profit ratio calculation. The agency explained that the profit before tax is "narrower and helps to isolate costs for phosphate ore mining and beneficiation activities." Restani said that PhosAgro failed to show that "including expenses broader than those involved in the mining and beneficiation of phosphate ore would bolster Commerce's goal to render an accurate profit ratio."

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 16 rejected the Commerce Department's finding that importer Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judge Timothy Stanceu said CBP's final evasion determination and administrative review of the final decision contained "multiple errors, both of fact and of law." For instance, CBP pointed to no evidence showing that Columbia received aluminum door thresholds from China, transshipped the thresholds from China through Vietnam or falsely declared the country of origin as Vietnam instead of China. Stanceu added that CBP erroneously relied on a 2019 anti-circumvention proceeding, which applies only to aluminum extrusions exported from Vietnam made from aluminum previously extruded in China.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 5 opinion made public Jan. 16 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results reversing the use of adverse facts available against exporter Oman Fasteners for filing submitted 16 minutes late. The result is a zero percent margin for the company as part of the sixth antidumping review on steel nails from Oman. Judge M. Miller Baker upheld Commerce's use of Oman Fasteners' quarterly costs and not annual costs in calculating the company's cost of production, as well as its decision not to deduct Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from the U.S. price for all of Oman's entries.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 8 opinion rejected a motion from the U.S. seeking to retract the court's public opinion sustaining an affirmative injury finding from the International Trade Commission and to bracket information the government said was confidential. Touting the need for transparency in the court system, Judge Stephen Vaden said that the information the government sought to redact -- certain company names and numerical approximations -- is not confidential because the ITC failed to properly bracket it during litigation or the information is publicly available. The judge noted that neither "administrative agencies nor this Court can hide from scrutiny by censoring information," adding that only "truly confidential" information may be hidden from the public.

The Court of International Trade on Dec. 29 sustained the Commerce Department's final results in the 2019-20 antidumping duty administrative review on lined paper products from India. Judge Stephen Vaden said that Commerce didn't commit a programming error by altering respondent Navneet Education's response to "YES" to the question of whether product characteristic information was provided. While Navneet didn't give the agency the physical characteristics of the goods in its cost database, Navneet did put the data in question on the record as part of its submissions to Commerce, the court noted.