An aluminum foil importer added its own motion for judgment to a stack of cases, primarily coming from the foil and solar panel industries, challenging the Commerce Department’s alleged overemphasis on only one or two factors out of the five used to analyze a product’s country of origin in evasion investigations (see 2407030064, 2406140059 and 2401230041) (Hanon Systems Alabama Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00013).
The U.S. brought a complaint July 31 against a limited liability company and its owner for dodging antidumping duties on steel hangers, which it alleged “decimated the steel wire hanger manufacturing industry, leading to the closure of many manufacturing facilities across the United States and the loss of hundreds of U.S. jobs” (United States v. Zhe “John” Liu, CIT # 24-00132).
The Court of International Trade on July 30 sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand to remove exporter Nagase's compensation for payment expense from the company's general and administrative expense ratio. Judge Stephen Vaden also said that Nagase failed to exhaust its administrative remedies pertaining to its challenge to Commerce's assessment rate in the first review of the antidumping duty order on glycine from Japan.
The Court of International Trade on July 30 stayed Chinese printer cartridge exporter Ninestar Corp.'s lawsuit challenging its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List for four months or until the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force issues a final decision in the exporter's delisting request before the task force (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated July 26 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):
The Court of International Trade denied Seko Customs Brokerage's bids for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against its temporary suspension from the Entry Type 86 Test and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs. Judge Claire Kelly found Seko already received all the relief it sought when it was conditionally reinstated into the programs and told why it was originally suspended.
Litigants sparred at a July 23 oral argument at the Court of International Trade on whether the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel wheels from China cover wheels shipped from Thailand with either a rim or a disc made in China. The parties disagreed on whether a prior scope ruling from the Commerce Department spoke to whether these "mixed" goods -- wheels made with either a Chinese-origin rim or disc, but not both -- are covered by the AD/CVD scope (Asia Wheel v. United States, CIT # 23-00096).