The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 25 opinion upheld parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves remanded Commerce's pick of Brazil as the primary surrogate nation while using data for log inputs from Malaysia and the agency's decision to revise the Brazilian surrogate value data for plywood. The judge upheld Commerce's calculation of the Brazilian financial ratios and the agency's denial of exporter Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co.'s byproduct offset.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 23 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's 2018-19 review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Turkey. Judge Jane Restani said Commerce legally deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid by exporter Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi from its U.S. price. Noksel argued the government, by increasing the duties solely for goods from Turkey, distinguished the duties from the other Section 232 tariffs. Restani saw "no reason to vary" from past court rulings on this point. The judge also rejected Noksel's bid for a duty drawback adjustment.

The government cannot collect 20-year-old customs bonds when it took no action to collect them for over a decade, ruled the Court of International Trade in an opinion made public on Aug. 22. Judge Richard Eaton found the six-year statute of limitations on the bonds "began to run at liquidation when all of the events necessary to bring suit for the duties owed had occurred," not when CBP demanded payment. Even if the court agreed that CBP's claim that its action for breach of contract accrued thirty days after AHAC failed to pay, the claims would still be time-barred, said Eaton. Issuing a demand for payment was an act solely within the control of CBP. "Like any prudent litigant, CBP ... must act reasonably in pursuing its claims under a bond," he said.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 22 opinion upheld CBP's remand results in an Enforce and Protect Act investigation that found importer Aspects Furniture International evaded antidumping duties on wooden bedroom furniture from China. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that CBP properly relied on statements from CBP employees, which revealed that these employees saw workers in the Chinese manufacturing plants destroying documents. As a result of this conduct observed during verification, the agency levied adverse inferences against the importer. The judge said the adverse inferences and the overall evasion finding were proper given not only the document destruction but the many discrepancies found in Aspects' entry documents when compared to other evidence.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 22 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision on remand to find that hardwood plywood made by the Vietnam Finewood Co. using two-ply panels imported into Vietnam from China is outside the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. Judge Mark Barnett said that the scope decision complies with his previous order instructing Commerce to issue a scope ruling in line with the "unambiguous terms" of the orders' scope.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 21 opinion sent back the Commerce Department's decision on remand to stick by its finding that questionnaires issued in lieu of on-site verification in an antidumping investigation on forged steel fittings from India satisfied the statute's verification requirement. Judge Stephen Vaden said the agency failed to consider the interests of petitioners in relying on Commerce's consistent past practice along with possible alternatives. The judge said the agency must explain what other steps closer to an on-site verification it has considered now and in 2020 and why those were rejected.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 21 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in the 2018 review of the countervailing duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that Commerce legally found the provision of port usage rights at the Port of Incheon to respondent Hyundai Steel Co. to be a countervailable benefit and found the reduction for sewerage fees program was not countervailable.

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 17 again declined to allow a government counterclaim to proceed in an importer's denied protest case, redesignating it as a defense, but Judge Gary Katzmann appeared to leave the door open for the government to collect additional duties from the importer. In the case, which involves the classification of dried botanicals, CIT for the fourth time in just over two years said the government can't file counterclaims in cases brought by importers to challenge denied protests. However, should the government convince the court of its preferred classification as a defense, importer Second Nature Designs "may be liable to the Government for increased duties," Katzmann said in a footnote to the opinion.

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 16 denied a motion by importer Wanxiang America to dismiss a penalty case related to misclassification and failure to pay antidumping duties on tapered roller bearings. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that the importer's failure to abide by a CBP notice of action could be considered negligence or gross negligence, even though the notice of action wasn't binding on Wanxiang's subsequent entries. Katzmann also found misclassifications can constitute false statements subject to Section 1592 penalties, though he noted Wanxiang's "well-founded concerns" that mere classification disagreements shouldn't rise to the level of a penalty. He also declined to dismiss a count of negligence based on Wanxiang's arguments that a key scope ruling identifying the importer's goods a subject to antidumping duties had not yet been released.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 15 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping case in which the agency continued to rely on respondent Dillinger France's normal books and records as facts otherwise available to fill in missing cost of production data for prime and non-prime plate. Judge Gary Katzmann said Commerce's reliance on the exporter's normal books and records as facts otherwise available was not contrary to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in this case, despite that court finding the respondent's normal books did not reasonably reflect the costs linked with the production of other merchandise. Katzmann said evidence shows that "more than a mere scintilla" supports Dillinger's normal books and records as being "probative" of the missing cost information.