Jacob Kopnick

The entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should hear a case over whether tapered roller bearing importer Wanxiang America Corp. has jurisdiction to challenge guidance issued from the Commerce Department to CBP on the assessment of antidumping duties, the importer argued in an Oct. 18 petition at the Federal Circuit. Arguing that a panel at the appellate court's decision will force importers subject to customs penalty claims into a "Hobbesian choice," that will "eviscerate their right to judicial review," the entire court should reverse the panel's ruling, WAC argued (Wanxiang America Corporation v. United States, Fed. Cir. #20-1044).

The Commerce Department's decision to pick Turkey over Mexico as a surrogate country in an antidumping duty investigation was not backed by sufficient evidence, importer List Industries argued in an Oct. 14 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Seeing as the Mexican surrogate company's data was more detailed and that the company was actually profitable, unlike the Turkish company's, Commerce should have gone with the Mexican surrogate company, List said.

Importer Composite Technology International filed a trio of complaints at the Court of International Trade on Oct. 20 challenging CBP's tariff classification of its wooden stile and rail imports. When it denied Composite's protests, CBP pointed to a prior CIT ruling holding that the wooden stiles and rails fall under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 4421.90.97, but Composite argues for classification under subheading 4412.99.51 (Composite Technology International, Inc. v. United States, CIT #17-00175, #17-00129, #17-00178).

Turkish steel exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret kicked off litigation at the Court of International Trade in an Oct. 19 complaint over a countervailing duty review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey covering entries in 2018, arguing against the Commerce Department's finding that ship building company Nur Gemicilik ve Tic is a cross-owned input supplier of Kaptan (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00565).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Solar cell exporter Wuxi Tianran Photovoltaic Co. challenged the Commerce Department's application of adverse facts available relating to Tianran's benefits from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in an Oct. 20 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Tianran was hit with a 19.28% countervailing duty rate in the 2019 administrative review on solar cells from China, based on its alleged use of the EBCP -- a contention that Tianran says is refuted by clear record evidence showing that Tianran's customers did not use the program (Wuxi Tianran Photovoltaic Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00538). CIT has repeatedly struck down Commerce's reliance on AFA in regards to the EBCP in CVD reviews.

The Commerce Department dropped its reliance on facts otherwise available in a countervailing duty review related to a South Korean port usage rights program, in Oct. 20 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. Having filed for a voluntary remand at CIT to tackle what it identified as its own mistakes in relying on facts otherwise available, Commerce found it no longer needed to apply facts available after receiving additional information from the relvant exporter (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, CIT #20-03799).

The Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 18 opinion that the U.S. must respond to 25 of importer Greenlight Organic's requests for admissions in a customs fraud case. Having filed 116 of them, Greenlight, along with exporter Parambir Singh Aulakh, then moved to compel the U.S. to respond, hoping that they would narrow the scope of the fraud case and expedite the process. The court agreed with the U.S.'s objections to many of the RFAs, but ultimately granted the move to compel the U.S. to answer the remaining 25.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty review dropping a cost-based particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test, in an Oct. 19 order. Commerce dropped the PMS adjustment after the court previously found that the law does not permit such an adjustment for the purposes of calculating normal value (see 2106220064).

The Commerce Department denied two Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests after completing a voluntary remand to reconsider its decision to initially reject the exclusion bids. Submitting the denials on Oct. 18 in remand results at the Court of International Trade, Commerce cited the International Trade Administration's analysis of the situation, which found that the domestic industry had enough capacity to take over for the subject imports (Maple Leaf Marketing, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #20-00125).