The Court of International Trade in a July 6 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to grant a level-of-trade (LOT) adjustment for antidumping duty respondent Productos Laminados de Monterrey S.A. de C.V. (Prolamsa). Judge Timothy Stanceu sustained the LOT adjustment that Commerce made following the judge's initial remand order. The court ruled that petitioner Nucor Tubular Products' arguments that the higher selling expenses for one avenue of Prolamsa's trade were due to higher manufacturing costs and not higher selling expenses were "entirely speculative, if not illogical."
Country of origin cases
The Supreme Court's landmark ruling June 30 that curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's power to issue regulations intended to counter climate change is unlikely to have ramifications for trade cases at the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but there is a chance some trade actions with a larger scope could be affected, trade lawyers said in recent days.
CBP improperly classified wearable blankets in contravention of its own guidance, said Cozy Comfort in a June 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Cozy Comfort v. U.S., #22-00173). The agency's rate advance ran counter to its own guidance that sherpa-lined garments are not classifiable in heading 6110.
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to issue questionnaires in lieu of on-site verification due to the COVID-19-related travel restrictions in 2020 following an order from the Court of International Trade to either conduct verification virtually or further explain its original decision. The agency in June 30 remand results said that the plaintiffs, led by Bonney Forge, raised the issue of conducting a virtual verification too late and that mandatory respondent Shakti Forge Industries' questionnaire responses provide a "reasonable alternative" to on-site or remote verification (Bonney Forge Corporation v. United States, CIT #20-03837).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit owes no deference to CBP's procedures in an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion investigation since those procedures violated importer Royal Brush Manufacturing's due process rights, the importer argued in a June 30 reply brief. Royal Brush also argued that CBP's decision to not give the importer access to business confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding is a problem of CBP's own creation, and that the U.S. offers insufficient defenses of the company's constitutional due process claims (Royal Brush Manufacturing Inc. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1226).
The Court of International Trade in a June 30 opinion upheld the Labor Department's decision to deny a group of former AT&T call center workers trade adjustment assistance, ruling that the department "(finally) gets it right," following two previous remand orders. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that Labor adequately explained the evidence it relied on, asserting that the department appropriately relied on certified information to declare that the company did not offshore the plaintiffs' call center jobs.
The Court of International Trade in a July 1 order granted the U.S.'s motion for entry of confession of judgment in a customs case on imported hardwood plywood from Richmond International Forest Products (RIFP). In all, Richmond filed four cases over 60 entries of hardwood plywood, which CBP classified as of Chinese-origin, assessing antidumping, countervailing and Section 301 duties, along with a merchandise processing fee. RIFP argued that the plywood is from Cambodia, filing a series of protests that CBP denied (Richmond International Forest Products Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00178).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department erred by finding that Krakatau POSCO -- a joint venture between a private South Korean steel company and an Indonesian government-owned firm -- was not a government authority, leading Commerce to find its provision of cut-to-length steel plate below cost was not countervailable, the Wind Tower Trade Coalition said. Arguing against the U.S. and exporter Kenertec Power System, the coalition said in a June 29 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that by making its decision, the agency "elevated form over substance, frustrated the intent of the CVD law, and allowed Indonesia's wind tower producer to receive subsidies and escape duties" (PT. Kenertec Power System v. U.S., CIT Consol. #20-03687).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 28 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):