The Commerce Department unlawfully miscalculated duty rates and allowed a foreign producer too much leeway in the final results of its first antidumping administrative review of forged steel fluid end blocks from Italy, petitioner Ellwood City Forge Co. said in an Oct. 13 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Ellwood asked the court to remand the case to Commerce for reconsideration (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00191).
Ben Perkins
Ben Perkins, Assistant Editor, is a reporter with International Trade Today and its sister publications, Trade Law Daily and Export Compliance Daily, where he covers sanctions, court rulings, and other international trade issues. He previously worked as a trade analyst for a Washington D.C. advisory firm. Ben holds a B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. in International Relations from American University. Ben joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2022.
CBP's decision to assess antidumping and countervailing duties on its 2019 imports of solar modules from Vietnam could only be challenged under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i) because no other jurisdictions were available to provide relief of the "unprecedented" imposition of AD and CVD on merchandise not subject to an AD or CVD order, Greentech Energy Solutions said in its Oct. 12 response to DOJ's earlier motion to dismiss a case regarding imports of solar modules from Vietnam (Greentech Energy Solutions v. U.S., CIT # 23-00118).
In the Oct. 11 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 57, No. 37), CBP published a proposal to modify a ruling letter concerning woven upholstery fabric.
The International Trade Commission "failed to maintain the integrity of its own proceedings" when it found that freight rail couplers from China and Mexico injured the domestic industry despite an earlier finding to the contrary, importer Strato argued in an Oct. 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Strato v. U.S., CIT # 23-00158).
The Commerce Department is seeking additional "bites at the apple" in an Enforce and Protect Act case despite its evasion finding being unsupported, Norca Industrial Company said in an Oct. 11 reply at the Court of International Trade. Norca opposes CBP's request for an additional 90 days of remand proceedings, arguing that the issue is already decided since its carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings are out of scope. "This inquiry should end. Not in 90 days, but now," Norca said (Norca Industrial Company v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00192).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Oct. 10 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Court of international trade dismissed a case brought by Diamond Tools Technology (Thailand), which challenged the Commerce Department's determination that diamond sawblades produced in Thailand by Diamond Tools with Chinese cores and Chinese segments were circumventing antidumping duties on diamond sawblades from China, according to an Oct. 10 filing (Diamond Tools Technology (Thailand) v. U.S., CIT # 19-00143).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's fifth remand redetermination of the antidumping duty investigation of hardwood plywood products from China, according to an Oct. 10 opinion. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sustained Commerce's separate rate along with its decisions to exclude Jiangyang Wood and Dehua TB, and to include Sanfortune Wood and Longyuan Wood within the order.
The Commerce Department incorrectly calculated dumping rates for Canadian lumber exporters and used those "tainted" margins to calculate rates for other companies, a coalition including the governments of Canada and Quebec said in an Oct. 6 complaint to the Court of International Trade. The case is yet another involving the alleged misapplication of the Cohen's d test in Commerce's differential pricing methodology (Government of Canada, et al. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00187).