Court of International Trade

Swiss computer peripheral and software company Logitech won its tariff classification challenge in the Court of International Trade, getting duty-free treatment for its webcams and ConferenceCams, per an Aug. 24 decision. Senior Judge Leo Gordon ruled that the webcams fit under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8517, as argued by Logitech, as opposed to heading 8525, dutiable at 2.1%, as suggested by the government. Finding that the products in dispute fall under both headings, Gordon said the duty-free heading describes the goods “with a greater degree of accuracy and certainty.”

The Court of International Trade remanded two Commerce Department scope rulings on an antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China in separate challenges. In one case, brought by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce misinterpreted evidence from the International Trade Commission on whether Crane's flanges are subject to the order. In the other case, brought by Star Pipe Products, Stanceu said that Commerce did not consider all the relevant evidence when finding that Star Pipe's flanges are covered by AD duties.

The Commerce Department did not violate the law when it included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited in an antidumping investigation, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 25 order. Judge Leo Gordon said that there is nothing in the statute that requires Commerce to perform a bona fide sales analysis on paid U.S. sample sales during an antidumping investigation.

The Court of International Trade dismissed a case from steel importers Voestalpine USA Corp. and Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel requesting reliquidation of two steel entries exclusive of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, in an Aug. 26 order. Chief Judge Mark Barnett said that while the case appropriately sought jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) since it challenged a denied exclusion request from the Commerce Department, the plaintiffs received all the relief available to them from Commerce -- their exclusion request was eventually granted, so that aspect of the case was moot. But to secure a refund, they should have filed a protest to seek CBP reliquidation of the relevant entries, and they did not, Barnett said.

No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

Industrias Negromex and Dynasol, Mexican exporters of emulsion styrene-butadiene rubber (ESBR), are challenging the Commerce Department's rejection of questionnaire responses in an antidumping duty administrative review on ESBR from Mexico, according to an Aug. 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's rejection of Negromex's corrective model matching information, whether considered a corrective filing or new factual information, constitutes an unlawful rejection of factual information and a failure to calculate an accurate dumping margin, the complaint said (Industrias Negromex, S.A. de C.V., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00495).

The Commerce Department did not violate the law when it included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited (PESL) in an antidumping investigation, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 25 order. Judge Leo Gordon said that there is nothing in the statute that requires Commerce to perform a bona fide sales analysis on paid U.S. sample sales during an investigation. "It should go without saying that, without a legal requirement that Commerce perform such an analysis, there is no basis for the court to issue an affirmative injunction that Commerce must conduct a bona fide sales analysis on PESL’s paid U.S. sample sales," the judge said.

The Department of Justice, in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade initially filed by Fine Furniture (Shanghai), requested CIT sustain the Commerce Department's remand results, in Aug. 24 comments. The case stems from an antidumping duty administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Following multiple court decisions and remand results (see 2107130080), Fine Furniture's case was stayed pending a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which eventually found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping duty order. Since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD duty order received de minimis rates in Commerce's final determination, Fine Furniture was removed from the review. This led to the AD duty rate for all separate rate respondents falling to zero percent (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #14-00135). Most recently, the plaintiffs all signed off on the remand results, leaving no party to challenge the redetermination and nothing further to resolve in the litigation (see 2108110023).

The Commerce Department properly used the expected method in an antidumping duty administrative review when it averaged two adverse facts available rates to apply to the non-individually examined respondents, the Department of Justice argued in an Aug. 16 filing at the Court of International Trade. Due to a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, Albemarle Corp. & Subsidiaries v. United States, which held that the antidumping duty rate for mandatory respondents should be found to be representative unless enough evidence shows otherwise, Commerce properly used the expected method to find the non-individually examined respondents' rate, it said (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).

Plaintiff Nucor Corporation mischaracterized, oversimplified and took the Commerce Department's remand results out of context in its comments on a submission in a case stemming from the agency's countervailing duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from South Korea, the Department of Justice said in Aug. 18 comments at the Court of International Trade, backing the remand redetermination. DOJ continued to back Commerce's contention that the South Korean government did not provide a countervailable subsidy to producers of hot-rolled steel through cheap electricity. Contrary to what Nucor's comments assert, Commerce adhered to the statute when completing its less-than-adequate remuneration analysis in the CVD case and properly accounted for the Korean Power Exchange's role in the electricity market, DOJ said (POSCO, et al. v. U.S., CIT #16-00227).