Court of International Trade
Summary of Decisions
On June 3, 2019, in the ongoing case of determining whether or not Plaintiff Midwest Fastener’s zinc and nylon anchor products are considered to be nails, the CIT sustained the Department of Commerce’s final results of the redetermination pursuant to the Court Remand. The CIT concluded that Plaintiff’s zinc and nylon anchors do not function like nails and are considered a separate type of product from nails by the relevant industry. Commerce’s remand results were sustained and Plaintiff Midwest Fastener’s products were excluded from the scope.
On June 6, the CIT denied Plaintiffs Confederacion de Asociaciones Agricolas del Estado de Sinaloa, Consejo Agricola de Baja California, Asociacion Mexicana de Horticultura Protegida, Asociacion de Productores de Hortalizas del Yaqui y Mayo, and Sistem Producto Tomate (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) motion for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) and preliminary injunction (“PI”) in the antidumping duty investigation of tomatoes from Mexico. The Court determined that the Plaintiffs had not met their burden to establish the likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable harm absent injunctive relief. They also had failed to establish if the hardships tip in favor of denying the Plaintiff’s motion. The Court also found the public interest to be neutral. For those reasons the CIT denied the plaintiff’s motions.
On June 7, 2019, in the anticircumvention investigation of heat-treated 5050-grade aluminum extrusions from the People’s Republic of China, the Court sustained Commerce’s determination that it had the authority to conduct a later-developed product anticircumvention inquiry and concluded that Commerce’s determination that the subject merchandise are “later-developed products” is supported by substantial evidence. However, the Court found that Commerce’s decision to suspend liquidation relative to the date of the Initiation Notice was not in accordance with law because the language in the notice did not provide an adequate notice. The Court remanded Commerce to, “reformulate its liquidation instructions consistent with the opinion.”
On June 12, 2019, in the final results of the sixth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on the imports of certain steel nails from the People’s Republic of China, the CIT partially sustained and partially remanded Commerce’s first remand results. The Court found that neither the law nor the facts supported Commerce’s findings that “1) none of Shandong’s factors of production or its U.S. sales information was usable, and 2) that Shandong failed to comply with Commerce’s requests for production and sales information to the best of its ability and 3) that a rate of 118.04% was legally and factually justified.” Due to those mentioned reasons, the Court remanded the matter to Commerce to reissue a redetermination.
On June 13, 2019, concerning the final determination in the 2015-2016 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on chlorinated isocyanurates from the People’s Republic of China, the Court sustained and remanded Commerce’s final determination. Specifically, the Court remanded Commerce’s determination to treat Defendant Intervenor’s, Juancheng Kangtai Chemical, sales to Customer X as export price sales on the grounds that Commerce could not persuasively argue that Kangtai and Customer X were unaffiliated.
On June 17, 2019, the CIT granted the Defendant’s motion for summary judgment and denied Plaintiff Echostar Technologies motion for summary judgement in the case of collecting a refund of 99% duties paid on its exported video technology goods. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) liquidated the twelve claims in issue for goods exported in 2011 and 2012 and denied duty refunds worth $276,275.12. The Court determined that “Echostar’s electronic submission of summary data was not a ‘filing’ under 19 U.S.C. § 1313; and CBP was not responsible for Echostar’s untimely filing.”
On June 21, 2019 the Court sustained Commerce’s final determinations in the administrative review of the antidumping duty on fine denier polyester staple fiber from the Republic of Korea. Plaintiffs Solianus Inc and Consolidated Fibers challenged Commerce’s “all-others” antidumping duty rate that was assigned to all non-investigated Korean producers and exporters in the final decision. On review, the Court sustained Commerce’s methodology in calculating the “all-others” antidumping duty rate 0f 30.15%.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
On June 7, 2019, Appellee Ford Motor Company (“Ford”) sued Appellant United States (“the Government”) in the U.S. Court of International Trade (“CIT”), challenging U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (“Customs”) classification of its model year (“MY”) 2012 Transit Connect 6/7 vehicles under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (“HTSUS”) of the United States Subheading 8704.31.00, which bears a duty rate of 25% ad valorem. Ford and the Government filed cross-motions for summary judgment, with Ford arguing that its products should be classified under the HTSUS Subheading 8703.23.00 which has a lower duty rate of 2.5% ad valorem. The CIT denied the Government’s cross-motion for judgement and ended up granting Ford’s. The CAFC found Ford’s arguments unpersuasive and reversed the judgment of the CIT and ruled in favor of the Government.
The sealed opinion was issued on May 9, 2019, however the public version of the opinion was issued June 14, 2019. On May 9, 2019, BMW of North America LLC (“BMW”) appealed the final judgment of the United States Court of International Trade, sustaining the United States Department of Commerce’s application of an adverse facts available (“AFA”) rate of 126.44% against BMW in the antidumping duty administrative review of ball bearings and parts thereof from Japan and the United Kingdom. The CAFC concluded that Commerce did not set forth its reasoning in sufficient detail to allow review of whether the selected AFA rate was unduly punitive and vacated the USCIT’s decision and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.
On June 21, 2019, in the countervailing duty investigation on certain corrosion-resistant steel products (CORE) from Korea, the CAFC rejected the broad legal position advanced by Commerce in defending its decision, however they did not find any reversible error in Commerce’s decision. The Plaintiff, Nucor Corporation, alleged that the Korean Government had provided subsidies to Korean CORE producers through its sale of electricity. Commerce found no electricity-sale subsidies and the Court of International Trade affirmed Commerce’s findings concerning the electricity sales. Plaintiff Nucor argued that Commerce had committed reversible error when they limited the analysis to Korean Electric Power Corporation’s (KEPCO) prices in relation to its costs and not consider Korean Power Exchange’s (KPX) prices that they charged. Because Commerce only mentioned KEPCO’s costs in its preliminary decision and did not bring up KPX, the CAFC stated that Plaintiff Nucor should have been, “sufficiently on notice of Commerce’s limited focus. Yet it [Nucor] did not adequately raise the issue to Commerce in its case brief filed after the preliminary decision.” Ultimately the CAFC rejected the broad position asserted by Commerce, however they did not find any reversible error in Commerce’s decision.
