The Commerce Department properly adhered to remand instructions from the Court of International Trade by relying on data from Xeneta XS over Maersk Line when calculating a company's surrogate ocean freight expenses in an antidumping administrative review on solar cells, both the Department of Justice and plaintiffs in the case agreed in two filings of comments on the remand results. The change in surrogate data selection led to a dumping margin of 5.08% for mandatory respondent Changzhou Trina Solar Energy Co. and the separate rate respondents, many of whom are also plaintiffs in the case (Changzhou Trina Solar Energy Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #18-00176).
Court of International Trade activity
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on June 2 stayed a case challenging an Enforce and Protect Act determination of antidumping duty evasion pending the resolution of a related case on the scope of the underlying AD order. Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden ordered that within 14 days of the resolution of the AD scope case, the Department of Justice and plaintiff Thai pipe exporter Blue Pipe Steel Center Co. will file a status report and proposed briefing schedule. The related case on the scope ruling concerns whether dual stenciled pipe is covered under the AD order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand. In the motion to stay proceedings, Blue Pipe argued that if the scope ruling were deemed to be unlawful, “CBP’s determination of Blue Pipe’s evasion should also be deemed unlawful” (Blue Pipe Steel Center Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00081).
CBP made an admissibility determination for an imported machine "designed for the recovery of cannabis crude extract from cannabis biomass," thus barring an order from the Court of International Trade to show cause against an expedited litigation track, the Department of Justice said in a June 3 reply brief. In a case brought by Root Sciences, the court was asked to consider whether CBP's decision to stop the import of the "hopper feed vessel" is a deemed exclusion or seizure. DOJ says it's the latter, thereby removing jurisdiction from CIT and moving it to the district court in which the seizure took place. Root Sciences said it was deemed excluded, giving CIT jurisdiction and reason to order DOJ to show cause why the deemed exclusion can't be lifted and an expedited litigation track can't be adopted (Root Sciences, LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00123).
The Court of International Trade in a June 2 opinion remanded an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China to the Commerce Department after a related ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found the mandatory respondents to not be subject to the AD order. In the remand, Commerce is to determine a new rate for the separate rate respondents now that the existing 0.79% dumping margin for the mandatory respondents' rate no longer applies.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 2 upheld a Court of International Trade ruling that S.C. Johnson's Ziploc brand reclosable sandwich bags are classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 3923 as articles for the conveyance or packing of other goods, dutiable at 3%, as opposed to heading 3924 as plastic household goods, which would be eligible for duty-free Generalized System of Preferences benefits program treatment. Since the bags could fall under either heading 3923 or 3924, heading 3923 is the correct home for the bags since its terms are "more difficult to satisfy and describe the article with a greater degree of accuracy and certainty," the Federal Circuit said.
The Department of Justice motioned the Court of International Trade late June 1 to dismiss the HMTX-Jasco sample case in the massive Section 301 litigation for “failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” HMTX-Jasco can’t establish that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative exceeded its “statutory authority” under the 1974 Trade Act when it ratcheted up the lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports, nor did its actions violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “as they were not arbitrary and capricious,” the government’s 77-page filing in docket 1:21-cv-52 said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Thai pipe exporter Blue Pipe Steel Center Co. filed an unopposed motion to stay proceedings on June 1 in its Enforce and Protect Act challenge until a decision is received from a related case involving a scope ruling on the underlying antidumping duty order in the Court of International Trade. Blue Pipe is hoping to reverse the affirmative determination that its dual stenciled pipe evaded antidumping duties on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand. Since a related lawsuit from Saha Thai is challenging a scope ruling that found that dual-stenciled pipe was covered by the AD duty order, Blue Pipe's case should wait until the scope matter is settled, the company said.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results that, unprompted by court order, raised the antidumping rate for Indian steel exporter Venus Wire Industries, in a June 2 opinion. Though Judge Mark Barnett had in November only ordered Commerce to further explain its use of partial AFA in the underlying review, Commerce also changed its calculations to raise the AD rate on Venus for its stainless steel bar exports from India from 5.35% to 24.6%.