CBP's Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate recently upheld on review a finding that AA Metals evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, it said in a decision following an Enforce and Protect Act administrative review. AA Metal submitted the request for review in May after CBP issued an April determination of evasion (see 2204070042). The investigation followed a March 2020 EAPA allegation by Texarkana Aluminum against AA Metals, alleging that AA Metals entered common alloy aluminum sheets of Chinese origin into the U.S. via transshipment through Turkey to evade AD/CVD duties on aluminum from China.
Country of origin cases
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Minor issues in reporting home market sales in an antidumping duty administrative review don’t rise to the level that would justify an adverse facts available margin for an exporter’s large power transformers from South Korea, nor does the exporter’s purported lack of cooperation in a previous year’s administrative review give Commerce leeway to apply AFA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Aug. 11.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Aug. 11 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The CEO of two personal protective equipment companies will pay more than $157,000 in civil penalties to settle a lawsuit referred recently to DOJ over false "Made in USA" claims, the Federal Trade Commission said in a news release. FTC alleged that Adam Harmon and two companies he controlled, Axis LED Group and ALG-Health, deceptively said in marketing materials and labels that the products were made in the U.S. (United States v. Axis LED Group, et al., N.Dist. Ohio # 3:22-01389). "Harmon and ALG made numerous false and misleading claims that their PPE products were all or virtually all made in the United States, even though the products were wholly imported, or incorporated significant imported materials or subcomponents," the agency said. "These claims and other false statements -- including that the defendants’ products were U.S.-origin respirators, certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety (NIOSH) -- violated the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act." Under a proposed settlement order, Harmon and the companies must stop with the deceptive origin claims and substantiate all Made in USA language. Harmon and the companies also must "pay a $157,683.37 civil penalty, which is due immediately," FTC said. "The defendants are also subject to a $2.8 million redress judgment, which is suspended due to their inability to pay. Should the FTC discover that the defendants have misstated the value of any assets or failed to disclose them, the agency will "seek to have the suspension lifted and the full judgment due immediately."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should not grant a rehearing petition to Hitachi in an antidumping duty case, argue both the U.S. government and defendant-appellant Hyundai in two separate Aug. 9 responses at CAFC (Hitachi Energy USA v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #20-2114).
The Commerce Department continued to apply countervailing duties for China’s Export Buyer’s Credit Program to two Chinese wooden cabinet exporters in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade Aug. 5, despite a court-ordered effort by the agency to validate non-use of the program without information withheld by the Chinese government.
Minor issues in reporting home market sales in an antidumping duty administrative review don’t rise to the level that would justify an adverse facts available margin for an exporter’s large power transformers from South Korea, and the exporter’s purported lack of cooperation in a previous year’s administrative review does not give Commerce leeway to apply AFA anyway, said the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 11 decision. Affirming a decision of the Court of International Trade, the Federal Circuit upheld the lower court’s finding that the errors in a small subset of Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems’s reported home market sales “were inadvertent and were corrected without undue difficulty,” and should not have served as the basis for the 60.81% AFA rate originally assigned by Commerce. On remand, Commerce had dropped its reliance on AFA and calculated a zero percent AD duty rate. Hitachi, petitioner in the case, had appealed.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade will close out a controversial case involving allegations of antidumping and countervailing duty evasion by a Dominican exporter in that Dominican exporter’s favor, granting on Aug. 8 a motion to enter judgment sustaining CBP’s reversal of an evasion finding for Kingtom Aluminio in an Enforce and Protect Act investigation. Kingtom, several importers and the U.S. government had filed a joint motion requesting CBP’s remand results be sustained (see 2206230037).