In oral argument held Jan. 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit indicated that it preferred the government’s stricter interpretation of the statute governing automatic liquidation of drawback claims over an importer’s more expansive one (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 8 held that domestic sales, "in certain circumstances, may qualify as the basis for using transaction value as an appraisement method." CAFC Judges Sharon Prost and Tiffany Cunningham, along with U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware Judge Richard Andrews, held that the Court of International Trade got it right when it said the transaction value statute, 19 U.S.C. 1401a(b)(1), doesn't require an "international sale or a sale abroad to have occurred for a sale of merchandise to be considered as a sale 'for exportation to the United States.'"
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
In separate remand comments, Chinese solar cell exporters pushed back against the Commerce Department’s refusal on remand to put aside its valuation of solar glass using Romanian Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 7007.19.80 in a 2019-20 antidumping duty review (see 2509290044) (Jinko Solar Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00219).
If the Commerce Department recalculates the rate of a review’s mandatory respondent, it also must recalculate the review’s all-others rate, a Mexican light-walled rectangular pipe and tube exporter said in a Jan. 6 motion for judgment (Maquilacero v. United States, CIT # 25-00176).
Perkins Coie offered its initial defense in a malpractice suit against the firm relating to its representation of exporter Oman Fasteners in various antidumping duty and countervailing duty proceedings.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 8 affirmed the Court of International Trade's ruling that sales from importer Midwest-CBK's Canadian warehouse to U.S. customers are "sales for export to the U.S." rather than "domestic sales" and thus were properly appraised using transaction value rather than deductive value. CAFC Judges Sharon Prost and Tiffany Cunningham, along with District Court for the District of Delaware Judge Richard Andrews, sitting by designation, held that the transaction value statute doesn't "expressly require that a sale be international or occur abroad." The court added that the case law and the statutory scheme don't support Midwest's claim, since they establish that "domestic sales may in fact serve as the basis of a transaction value appraisement."
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 8 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the 2017-18 review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China following a remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Commerce's overhead ratio calculations due to issues with the agency's energy and manufacturing overhead determinations. For energy costs, the judge said Commerce adequately supported its decision to use inventories costs in the denominator of the overhead ratio, since "some amount of energy costs is contained in inventories costs" and the agency can't strip out the non-energy costs. Regarding the manufacturing overhead costs, Kelly said the evidence supports Commerce's inferences that "inventories costs include some energy costs" and "the difference between cost of sales and inventories costs reflects manufacturing overhead."
The Commerce Department erred in determining that U.S. seafood seller Luscious Seafood didn't make a "bona fide" sale of the domestic like product as part of an antidumping duty review on Vietnamese frozen fish fillets, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Jan. 6.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 8 sustained the Commerce Department's final determination in the countervailing duty investigation of frozen warmwater shrimp from Vietnam. Judge Leo Gordon held that the court "cannot agree" with plaintiff Soc Trang Seafood that Commerce acted unreasonably when it found that the Thailand Board of Investment's "Cost of doing Business in Thailand 2023" report constituted the "best available information on the record for establishing a benchmark to value land rented from government authorities."