The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 sustained the Commerce Department’s application of the Transactions Disregarded Rule to calculate mattress exporter Zinus Indonesia’s normal value in an AD investigation. However, it remanded Commerce’s decision, in constructing Zinus Indonesia’s export price, to apply a quarterly financial ratio to the mattresses of Zinus’ U.S. affiliate that were still in transit at the end of the period of review; doing so was using facts otherwise available, the court said, and Commerce should have first asked Zinus Indonesia for the relevant missing information. CIT also granted Commerce a voluntary remand on its decision to exclude Zinus Korea’s selling expenses from Zinus Indonesia’s constructed value so that the department could consider more evidence that the Korean affiliate helped Zinus Indonesia sell its products (PT. Zinus Global Indonesia v. U.S., CIT # 21-00277).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 remanded the Commerce Department's finding that R210-S engines made by Chongqing Rato Technology Co. fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc from China. Exporter Zhejiang Amerisun Technology Co. argued the R210-S engines have a newly designed horizontal shaft engine outside the orders' scope, while the U.S. said the horizontal shaft engine was equivalent to a modified vertical shaft engine, falling within the orders' scope. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Commerce's claim that the orders don't include an exhaustive list of the parts needed for an engine to be covered cuts against "well-established legal precedent regarding scope rulings," and that the agency improperly relied on Wikipedia articles -- an "inherently unreliable source."
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 16 said that importer Trijicon's tritium-powered gun sights are properly classified under CBP's preferred Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading of 9405.50.40 as lamps "or other lighting fittings," dutiable at 6%, instead in subheading 9022.29.80 as "apparatus based on the use of alpha, beta or gamma radiations," free of duty, as argued by Trijicon. Judge Mark Barnett said the tritium-powered products don't qualify as an "apparatus" under either of the definitions offered by Trijicon and the U.S. because they meet the "common definition of a device," given that they are made for a particular purpose: illumination.
A U.S. motion to dismiss an importer's challenge of the way CBP handled liquidation after a prior disclosure amounts to a “mischaracterization” of its complaint, and the Court of International Trade also had jurisdiction over the case pursuant to the Customs Courts Act of 1980, the importer said (Larson-Juhl US v. U.S., CIT # 23-00032).
In Feb. 13 remand comments filed in the Court of International Trade, a domestic petitioner said that CIT erred in its ruling remanding a Moroccan phosphate fertilizer exporter’s CVD determination and that this forced the Commerce Department to incorrectly recalculate the exporter’s costs (The Mosaic Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00116).
CBP on Feb. 15 reversed its finding that importer Columbia Aluminum Products evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, CIT # 19-00185).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 15 said companies that submit requests for administrative review in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings can intervene as a matter of right at the Court of International Trade.
Certain types of electrical conduit fittings imported from China are not subject to an antidumping duty order on certain malleable iron pipe fittings from that country, the Commerce Department said in a Feb. 8 scope ruling.
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 13 dismissed an antidumping duty case brought by exporter Oman Fasteners for lack of prosecution. Mario Toscano, clerk of the court, said that no complaint was filed "within the period" laid out by 19 U.S.C. 1516a, which says an interested party may file a summons and complaint within 30 days of a determination from the Commerce Department. Oman Fasteners brought the suit to contest the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from Oman in which it received a zero percent dumping margin. No separate lawsuit was filed by the petitioner in the review, Mid Continent Steel & Wire (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT # 24-00008).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 opinion made public Feb. 13 remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on thermal paper from Germany. Judge Gary Katzmann sustained Commerce's inclusion of exporter Koehler Paper's "Blue4est" paper product within the scope of the investigation, its coding of the dynamic sensitivity product characteristic and its application of price adjustments for some home market rebates.