Jacob Kopnick

The Commerce Department's decision to assume 24 working days per month for calculating surrogate labor rates, instead of 21 days, in an antidumping administrative review is unsupported, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a June 24 motion for judgment in the Court of International Trade. The coalition said the agency failed to properly explain its switch to 24 working days after originally relying on 21 days in its preliminary determination (Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood v. United States, CIT #20-03930).

The Commerce Department continued to use Malaysia as its primary surrogate country in an antidumping administrative review after the Court of International Trade told the agency to further explain the departure from using Romania, Commerce said in June 30 remand results. The agency did, however, grant that Romania classifies as a "significant producer" of activated carbon, the subject merchandise, a departure from its final results. The agency also switched to using Malaysian surrogate values for a key input in activated carbon for most of the mandatory respondents' suppliers.

A particular market situation will no longer be part of the dumping margin calculation for oil country tubular goods from Korea after the Commerce Department submitted its remand results to the Court of International Trade on June 30. Commerce dropped the PMS finding after the court said that there was not enough evidence to support the agency's finding that the Korean steel market was heavily subsidized (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).

The Court of International Trade ruled June 29 it doesn't have jurisdiction over one of 12 entries of plywood from China in a customs case because the plaintiff didn't protest that entry's reliquidation. The lawsuit will continue over the remaining 11 entries.

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

The Department of Justice said in June 30 oral argument before the Court of International Trade that its positions on the proper jurisdiction for cases challenging either the exclusion or seizure of goods identified as drug paraphernalia are consistent in district courts and CIT. If an import is excluded from entry by CBP, CIT has jurisdiction. If the good is seized, the district court has jurisdiction, it said. DOJ argues that CIT doesn't have jurisdiction to hear a case brought by Root Sciences since CBP seized a cannabis crude extract recovery machine from the importer rather than excluding it (Root Sciences, LLC v. United States, CIT # 21-00123).

The Commerce Department's decision to swap the basis for its total adverse facts available determination in an antidumping administrative review is backed by substantial evidence and in line with Court of International Trade remand orders, the Department of Justice said in June 30 comments on the remand results. After Judge M. Miller Baker found that Commerce improperly relied on two issues with plaintiff Hung Vuong Group's data submitted to the agency to determine AFA, Commerce flipped to two other elements of HVG's data to make the same determination (Hung Vuong Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00055).

Hilti, Inc., with consent from the Department of Justice, moved for the Court of International Trade to stop liquidation of its steel nail entries pending a result in its challenge of the expansion of Section 232 tariffs onto steel “derivatives,” in a June 29 filing. The importer wants the court to bar CBP from liquidating its steel nails entries subject to the 25% steel derivatives tariffs for entries made after 12:01 am Feb. 8, 2020. Hilti conferred with Ann Motto of DOJ, who consented to the suspension of liquidation, without addressing the likelihood of success in the case, the company said (Hilti, Inc., v. U.S. et al., CIT # 21-00216).

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

Citgo Petroleum filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, seeking to stop international trading company Teknik Trading from auctioning off its goods that are “stranded” because Citgo's parent company is subject to U.S. sanctions. According to a June 25 complaint, Citgo contracted Teknik to store then deliver over $11 million worth of goods intended for Citgo's parent company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA). Once PdVSA was sanctioned by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the goods were frozen (Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Teknik Trading Inc., S.D. Tex #4:21-02086).