The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s scope determination, challenged by Chinese company Global Commodity Group LLC (GCG), that GCG’s imported product falls within the scope of certain antidumping and countervailing duty orders on citric acid and certain citrate salts from China (A-570-937 and C-570-938, respectively).
The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s final antidumping duty determination in certain coated paper suitable for high-quality print graphics using sheet-fed presses from Indonesia (A-570-958) with respect to the Indonesian company Pindo Deli’s arguments that (i) the ITA improperly expanded the scope of the investigation to include multi-ply paper, and (ii) the ITA’s final determination is contrary to law because it rests on inadequate industry support.
The Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, refused to rehear en banc a case involving tariffs paid on plasma flat panel televisions assembled in Mexico between June 1, 2003, and December 27, 2005. The petition for rehearing was filed by plaintiff Hitachi Home Electronics in the case of Hitachi Home Electronics (America) vs. the U.S. The court said a poll of the judges showed no support for a rehearing.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (Ex-Im Bank) said a Miami resident and businessman Rafael E. Cuarezma was sentenced March 22 to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to criminal charges of two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. According to court records, Cuarezma was the general manager of LFM International Corp., an electronics business in Miami, that exported electronic equipment to buyers in foreign countries. Court records show that Cuarezma entered into a conspiracy with others to defraud Ex-Im Bank and unlawfully enrich themselves by submitting false and fraudulent information to Ex-Im Bank through a lender to obtain money from the loan and misappropriate the loan proceeds for their own use and benefit, the OIG said. Cuarezma admitted that he and others prepared false loan applications financial statements, shipping documents, and invoices saying that Cuarezma, through LFM, had sold and shipped approximately $1.1 million worth of goods manufactured in the U.S. to South American buyers. Cuarezma had not sold or shipped any of the goods. Cuarezma defaulted on his loan causing Ex-Im Bank to pay a $372,808 claim to the lender, the OIG said.
The Court of International Trade denied a motion by two Korean producer/exporters to amend a preliminary injunction against liquidation of entries of merchandise subject to the revoked antidumping duty order on diamond sawblades and parts thereof from Korea in order to permit liquidation of subject merchandise entered on or after the effective date of revocation of the order. In the same opinion, the CIT also allowed the domestic plaintiffs (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturing Coalition) to amend their complaint in the case, as the ITA’s final section 129 determination for diamond sawblades from Korea altered the effect of the results of the AD final determination at issue in the litigation.
Applikon’s Bioreactor Systems are correctly classified under subheading 8479.82.00, (free) Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. (HTSUS), said the U.S. Court of International Trade in a decision March 28. The U.S. had moved for a rehearing of an earlier decision to correct what it said was “clear error” in the court’s decision.
Gazebos imported from China and sold at Target stores should indeed be classified as gazebos, and not as tents subject to higher duties, the Court of International Trade ruled in a March 22 decision, overturning a Customs and Border Protection decision. The court cited numerous differences between temporary tents and more-permanent gazebos, and even referred to dictionary definitions. "The record evidence establishes without contradiction that plaintiff's merchandise herein is marketed, sold, assembled, displayed and enjoyed as gazebos, not as tents," said the opinion written by Senior Judge Thomas Aquilino.
The Court of International Trade denied domestic furniture producer Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc.'s motion to delay Byrd Amendment fund distributions from the antidumping (AD) order on wooden bedroom furniture from China for fiscal years 2007 through 2010. Ashley had sought an injunction on the distributions while it takes up to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit its challenge of the denial by the International Trade Commission to grant it “affected domestic producer” or ADP, under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Act of 2000 (“Byrd Amendment,” or “CDSOA“). (Ashley had not supported the AD petition, as required by the Byrd Amendment to qualify for distributions).
U.S. authorities were banned from importing a drug used to carry out death sentences, in a decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., Tuesday. Leon said the Food and Drug Administration never approved the drug for use in the U.S., and he ordered supplies be confiscated. A group of death row inmates had sued last year to block the import or use of the drug, sodium thiopental.
An importer of Chinese high-strength galvanized finished steel tubing used in scaffolding appealed a decision by the Court of International Trade that upheld the inclusion of its products within the scope of the AD and CVD orders on circular welded carbon quality steel pipe from China. The importer, Constantine N. Polites & Co., had cited an exclusion for “finished scaffolding” in the AD and CV duty orders and claimed its merchandise was finished scaffolding. Following two CIT remands, the International Trade Administration provided evidence to show there were actual imports from China of “finished scaffolding” in kits, and that Polite’s merchandise was not of that type, i.e., was not “finished” and was covered by the orders.