The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer TR International Trading Company submitted a May 28 consent motion to the Court of International Trade asking to extend its case’s discovery period to November 2024 (TR International Trading Company v. U.S., CIT # 19-00217).
The U.S. said May 28 that service through a German exporter’s U.S. counsel of record in another case was adequate under the trade court’s rules of civil procedure (U.S. v. Koehler Oberkirch, CIT # 24-00014).
Importer Wagner Spray Tech. Corp. told the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department impermissibly used (k)(1) sources to expand the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China when it included the company's finished heat sink manifold under the AD/CVD orders (Wagner Spray Tech. Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00241).
The Canadian government and a group of eight Canadian lumber exporters sought to file an amici curiae brief in a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test to detect "masked" dumping. Filing unopposed for leave to file the briefs on May 28, the parties said they can provide "unique and robust explanations of the Cohen's d denominator, a full understanding of which will" aid the court to settle the issues in the case (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1556).
The Court of International Trade on May 30 remanded the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora and Apiario Diamante Producao e Comercial de Mel, collectively doing business as Supermel, in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from Brazil. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that minor discrepancies between data submitted from small, unaffiliated beekeeper suppliers and the data submitted by Supermel isn't a valid reason to not use the exporter's acquisition costs as a proxy for the actual cost of production data. In addition, the court rejected Commerce's claim that Supermel's responses to five of the agency's questions were deficient, finding that the "principal information that Commerce found Supermel to have withheld was provided in full" by the company.
The Court of International Trade on May 31 said that duty drawback claims are deemed liquidated after one year, as long as the underlying import entries are liquidated and final, and that "finality" is defined as the end of the 180-day protest window for the underlying entry. As a result of this clarification, Judge Jane Restani granted one of importer Performance Additives' duty drawback claims on its polymer and plastic chemical entries. The other claim's entries weren't liquidated and final on its one-year anniversary, precluding deemed liquidation.
CBP continued to find that three importers evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China on remand at the Court of International Trade, after providing the companies with access to the confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT # 20-03914).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer PNS Clearance dismissed its case challenging the assessment of a 1.02% antidumping duty rate on its quartz countertops. The company brought suit earlier this year to contest CBP's liquidation of 227 of the quartz countertop entries, claiming that they should be liquidated at the proper de minimis mark (see 2402160049). PNS said it acted as the importer of record but that the actual buyer was M S International and that the exporter was Pokarna Engineered Stone, which received a zero percent AD rate following an AD review of the goods. Counsel for the importer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on why the case was dismissed (PNS Clearance v. U.S., CIT # 24-00044).