The Commerce Department will reconsider its decision to reallocate the cost of production for antidumping administrative review respondent Nexteel Co.'s non-prime products to account for their losses when calculating constructed value, the Court of International Trade said in a June 7 ruling made public on June 15. Issuing her second remand in the case brought from steel producers Husteel Co. and Nexteel over the 2016-17 AD administrative review of welded line pipe from Korea, Judge Claire Kelly sustained all other determinations made by Commerce.
Court of International Trade activity
The Commerce Department continues to hold that the South Korean government did not provide a countervailable subsidy to producers of hot-rolled steel through cheap electricity and that the agency came to this conclusion in a legal way, despite a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to the contrary. In June 10 remand results in the Court of International Trade, Commerce explained why the Federal Circuit was mistaken in its ruling and why it used the appropriate methodology in determining that no benefit was conferred between the Korean government and producers POSCO and Hyundai Steel (POSCO v. United States, CIT #16-00227).
The Court of International Trade sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping administrative review on welded line pipe from Korea in a June 7 decision made public on June 15 -- the second on the case. Judge Claire Kelly took issue with Commerce's decision to reallocate the costs of production for respondent NEXTEEL Co.'s non-prime welded line pipe products to its prime products when calculating NEXTEEL's constructed value in the review. The judge sustained all of Commerce's remaining determinations in the case including findings that a particular market situation did not exist in Korea for a key input of welded line pipe products and the agency's reversal, under protest, of its initial rejection of respondent SeAH's Steel Corp.'s third country sales data into Canada to calculate normal value.
CBP was wrong to exclude certain motor frame assemblies from entry to the U.S. as "drug paraphernalia" since the goods, which will be used to make a marijuana processing machine, are legal in the states of Washington and Nevada, importer Eteros Technologies USA said in a June 11 complaint in the Court of International Trade. Eteros claims that there is an exemption to the law that bans the import of drug paraphernalia when a person who is allowed by local, state or federal law to "manufacture, possess or distribute 'drug paraphernalia.'" CBP has consistently failed to recognize this exemption, Eteros said (Eteros Technologies USA, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00287).
A challenge to Section 232 tariffs on steel “derivatives” brought by Tempo Global Resources will have to wait until after a key appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Court of International Trade said in a June 14 stay order. In a related case, PrimeSource Building Products Inc. v. United States, CIT found the tariff expansion onto steel and aluminum derivatives to be in violation of congressionally mandated time limits. On June 4, the Justice Department alerted the court of its intention to appeal to the Federal Circuit (see 2106110040) (Tempo Global Resources LLC v. United States, CIT #20-00066).
The Court of International Trade is set to hold oral arguments over a key relief question in the massive Section 301 litigation on June 17. Chief Judge Mark Barnett sent out four questions to the parties in a June 14 letter concerning the following: (1) how uncertainty over the court's authority to provide relief establishes that the plaintiffs are likely to suffer irreparable harm without this relief, (2) cases in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that CIT did not determine appropriate relief, (3) how the first question is articulated by the Supreme Court decision Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council and (4) the court's authority to enter a money judgment instead of reliquidation in the event the plaintiff's preliminary injunction prevails. The oral arguments will be held over the motion for a preliminary injunction filed by the plaintiffs to freeze the liquidation of unliquidated entries from China with lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure (see 2106070017).
A far-reaching legal challenge to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs brought by ME Global was stayed by the Court of International Trade pending an appeal of a related case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a June 14 stay order (ME Global, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00130) The Federal Circuit case, Universal Steel Products, Inc. v. United States, carries arguments similar to those in ME Global's case in that both claim that procedural requirements were ignored in President Donald Trump's expansion of the tariffs (see 2105250077).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade should stay liquidation of PrimeSource Building Products' imports of steel "derivatives" and reinstate the requirement of PrimeSource to monitor future derivative imports and maintain a sufficient continuous bond, pending an appeal of the steel derivative decision, the Department of Justice said in a June 9 filing.
Importers must file protests to preserve their ability to obtain refunds under exclusions from Section 301 tariffs, the Court of International Trade said in a June 11 decision. Dismissing a lawsuit from importers ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings, Judge Miller Baker found the court did not have jurisdiction to hear their challenge since the importers did not timely file protests of the CBP liquidations assessing the Section 301 duties.