Jacob Kopnick

The Court of International Trade sustained remand results in an antidumping investigation of whether a sale of steel flanges from Indian exporter Chandan Steel Limited should be excluded from its home market sales database when determining its antidumping duty margin, in a May 13 opinion. The Coalition of American Flange Producers, petitioners in the investigation, argued that Commerce had improperly come to the conclusion to exclude one sale from Chandan's home market database because Commerce failed to show that Chandan knew its sales were for export. In deciding if Chandan knew of its shipment's destination, Commerce considered three pieces of evidence: 1) the export quality packaging provision of the shipment, 2) Chandan's treatment of the shipment's logo and 3) the final payment and delivery terms of the sale. In all three cases, the court upheld Commerce's rationale for finding that all the evidence shows Chandan intended to export its steel flange shipment. For instance, the agency found that the logo on the shipment was consistent with goods sent to foreign markets "because sales to Indian customers and other customers abroad generally had different markings."

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

The Department of Justice requested a stay of proceedings in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade, arguing that there is significant overlap with a case currently before the Federal Circuit on the issue of whether a particular market situation existed in South Korea for the product in question. Filing for the stay in a case brought by SeAH Steel Corporation challenging the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain oil country tubular goods from South Korea, DOJ said that the Federal Circuit's decision will answer one of the central questions in SeAH's lawsuit, and would "likely streamline the issues in the case" (SeAH Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT # 19-00086). Plaintiffs do not consent to the stay request.

Since CBP seized a shipment of a cannabis crude extract recovery machine and did not subject it to deemed exclusion from entry, a case challenging the seizure does not have jurisdiction in the Court of International Trade, the Department of Justice said in a May 12 reply brief supporting its motion to dismiss. Importer Root Sciences argues that since it received a notice of seizure after the date of deemed exclusion, its shipment was deemed excluded from entry and thus warranting of jurisdiction in CIT, but citing past court precedent, DOJ said that notice of seizure is not the date of seizure, declaring that "a seizure necessarily occurs prior to the date on which Customs issues the notice of seizure," (Root Sciences, LLC v. United States, CIT # 21-00123).

The Department of Defense has agreed to a final order dropping the designation of Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi Corporation as a Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC), according to a May 11 joint status report filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Xiaomi supports the order, the report said, leaving the parties to negotiate over specifics before a final proposed order is to be submitted on or before May 20.

The Commerce Department failed to substantiate the quantity of fish meal and fish oil byproducts when granting a byproduct offset in a remand of an antidumping case, the defendant intervenor, the Catfish Farmers of America, argued in the Court of International Trade. Opposing remand results in a May 11 filing in CIT, CFA said Commerce's decision to flip its byproduct offset ruling on plaintiff NTSF Seafoods Joint Stock Co.'s fish meal and fish oil products was contrary to agency practice and the law. The decision to grant the offset failed to “substantiate” byproduct production and used “unreasonable surrogates to value NTSF's fish meal and oil by-product offsets,” CFA argued. NTSF agreed with the remand results in its own comments.

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

A group of importers involved in the litigation over the Section 301 tariffs sent a letter on May 7 to the White House urging a settlement in the case to "alleviate the economic and social harms these tariffs have caused to U.S. companies, U.S. workers and the overall U.S. economy." Led by the importers selected to serve as the test case for the litigation, HMTX Industries and Jasco Products Company, the companies told the White House they are seeking an end to the tariffs and a full refund of the "unlawfully" collected lists 3 and 4A duties collected from the companies. The case is currently making its way through the Court of International Trade.

Steel exporters Universal Tube and Plastic Industries, along with THL Tube and Pipe Industries and KHK Scaffolding and Framework, say that the Commerce Department incorrectly determined that there was only a single level of trade in the home market, in an antidumping case on circular welded carbon-quality steel pipe from the United Arab Emirates. In a May 10 motion for summary judgment in the Court of International Trade, Universal argued that Commerce ignored substantial record evidence to the contrary, leading to an improper antidumping duty margin (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 20-03944).

Sections 301 and 232 tariffs have created greater exposure to trade-related False Claims Act allegations, Sidley Austin said in a May 10 analysis. Since President Donald Trump drastically increased CBP's workload via the tariffs, greater incentives now exist to skirt the tariffs through fraudulent activity such as transshipment or inappropriate country of origin analysis for imports. This incentive for fraudulent activity mirrors the ramped-up incentives for the FCA allegations by those seeking to obtain a financial award for calling out the illegal behavior, the firm said.