Importer Denied Right to Appeal in Antidumping Case

Target Corporation was denied the chance to appeal a Court of International Trade decision on the antidumping duty rate for ironing tables from China that the retailer imports. In a Feb. 16 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said that the company has no right to appeal because it wasn't part of the original case and that it is not appealing CIT's original decision to deny Target the right to intervene in the original case.

The original case stems from a duty liquidation error from CBP. In December 2016, CIT entered a final judgement in an antidumping case that set the final duty rate for ironing tables from China from exporter Since Hardware at 72.29%. CBP then incorrectly liquidated the entries at 9.47%, leaving millions of dollar erroneously uncollected. CIT allowed this error to be fixed, calling for the collected duties to be paid (see 1909300030). Target, wanting to pay the lower antidumping duty rate, tried to intervene in the case -- a motion that CIT denied as moot.

In its appeal attempt, Target claimed that it had a right to challenge CIT's denial of its intervention in the original case. But CAFC put a quick halt to that notion, since Target barely touched on this claim in its opening brief.

The retailer also claimed that it has a right to appeal this case despite not having been a part of the original case. This claim was also rejected by CAFC, which pointed out that nonparty appeals only occur in very rare situations and that the company did not follow the proper procedure when attempting to intervene in this case. “Target’s nonparty appeal is in tension with the ordinary process of intervention,” the decision said. “Here, Target began to follow the required procedure before the CIT by moving to intervene, but then deviated from the normal path by choosing not to contest on appeal the CIT’s denial of its motion. As noted, Target presents us with no argument on the propriety of its request to intervene.”