The Court of International Trade rejected an importer's bid for reconsideration of its challenge of the countervailing duty rate assessed on its tire imports. The court found for the second time that the importer lacked proper jurisdiction due to an untimely filed protest of a liquidation decision. “The lesson is both clear and stark: Don’t sit on your rights,” Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden said.
Court of International Trade activity
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in a changed circumstances review on Argentine biodiesel, finding that the situation hadn't changed regarding countervailable subsidies for Argentina's biodiesel industry. Commerce based the underlying CVD order on an export tax differential between Argentine biodiesel and soybeans. The Argentine government then petitioned for a CCR, arguing that the rates were now equal. In the preliminary results of the CCR, Commerce held that the tax differential had in fact changed, slashing the CVD rate for biodiesel. After new evidence was given to the agency, Commerce found the biodiesel subsidy situation to be in "flux," eventually maintaining the original CVD rate.
The Commerce Department's decision to grant byproduct offsets for an antidumping review respondent's fish oil and fish meal exports was backed by sufficient evidence, the Court of International Trade said in a Sept. 20 order. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves also ruled that Commerce's determination that the Global Trade Atlas' (GTA) data was the best available to calculate a surrogate value for the two byproducts was properly supported.
The Court of International Trade denied importer Strategic Import Supply's motion for a reconsideration of its case over the proper countervailing duty rate for its tire imports in a Sept. 20 order. Finding that Strategic Import Supply didn't file a timely protest of CBP's decision to liquidate the imports of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, Judge Stephen Vaden again dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction. Strategic Import Supply sought reconsideration after CBP granted a nearly identical protest to the one subject to Vaden's previous dismissal.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's switch to neutral facts available from adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review due to the agency's failure to provide adequate assistance to a small, first-time respondent. The plaintiff -- Calcutta Seafoods, Bay Seafood and Elque & Co., referred to as the Elque Group -- challenged the final results of the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen warmwater shrimp from India. In the court's first opinion in the case, Judge Gary Katzmann said that the Elque Group gave proper notice of its need for help, which Commerce failed to give. Commerce's move away from AFA will cause Elque Group's dumping margin to fall to 27.66%, from 110.9%.
The Court of International Trade granted the Commerce Department's motion to lift a stay and voluntarily remand an antidumping duty challenge to give the agency a chance to consider new information showing inaccuracies in the mandatory respondent's reported sales prices. Pirelli Tyre Co., who received the all-others rate in the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. Commerce said the inaccuracies are based on potential fraud.
The Court of International Trade sustained the remand results in two similar antidumping duty cases after the Commerce Department dropped a particular market situation adjustment to the cost of production in the sales-below-cost test. The court issued two opinions on Sept. 17, both in cases brought by steel exporter Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company Ltd. which challenged the 2016-17 and 2017-18 administrative reviews of the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves had issued a total of three prior remands between the two cases, finding that the PMS adjustment was contrary to law, prompting Commerce to finally drop the adjustment under respectful protest.
Importer Triumph Engine Control Systems filed a Sept. 16 consent motion at the Court of International Trade to designate a tariff classification challenge on circuit card assemblies as a test case for four other of its lawsuits. Triumph believes the proper Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading is 9032, while CBP says 8538 is the correct subheading for the assemblies. The other four cases -- CIT #19-00108, 19-00109, 19-00110 and 19-00130 -- deal with "merchandise and legal issues that are substantially identical," to those in the proposed test case, the motion said. The Justice Department consented to the test case motion (Triumph Engine Control Systems, LLC v. United States, CIT #19-00094).
The U.S. and two respondents in an antidumping duty review backed the Commerce Department's decision to drop a particular market situation determination on South Korean steel, in recently filed briefs, arguing the agency relied on what evidence it had after the Court of International Trade ruled against evidence upon which it had originally relied to make the finding (SeAH Steel Co., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #19-00086).