CBP Still Finds Evasion by 3 Importers After Remand to Consider Royal Brush

CBP released a remand determination Jan. 18 reaffirming that three importers -- Newtrend USA, Starille and Nutrawave -- attempted to evade antidumping and countervailing duty orders on Chinese glycine (Newtrend USA v. U.S., CIT # 22-00347).

The Court of International Trade remanded the case in October at CBP's request. The agency intended to review its prior determination after the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ruled in another case, Royal Brush Mfg. v. U.S., that the agency violated due process rights by failing to grant Enforce and Protect Act respondents access to certain confidential information (see 2310230022).

On remand, CBP upheld its earlier findings, saying that “substantial evidence of evasion exists.” It asked petitioner and defendant-intervenor Geo Specialty Chemical to place more information, including “public summaries of business confidential documents,” on the record, and allowed all parties access to certain documents they had not been able to view before.

“On remand, the Importers and Geo were provided an opportunity to submit rebuttal information to this previously withheld business confidential information and make arguments,” the agency said.

CBP said that what the importers provided after receiving greater access to evidence was not enough to prove they hadn't evaded the AD/CVD. Each accused company gave CBP shipment data from the Indonesian government showing that PT Newtrend Nutrition Ingredient, the companies’ exporter, didn't import any glycine into Indonesia.

“PTNNI’s official import data is not definitive proof that PTNNI did not export Chinese-origin glycine to the Importers because import data specific to PTNNI would only include import shipments where PTNNI is the declared importer on Indonesian customs declarations,” CBP said.

The agency said it had previously determined that Indonesian trading companies “likely acted as importers for PTNNI” so that the Chinese product could reach Indonesia without being associated with the exporter.

The importers also included a construction contract for building a factory in Indonesia to produce the glycine. However, that contract included clauses allowing for late completion of the facility, and so CBP found it was insufficient to prove that the facility was in fact fully operational and constructed with all equipment installed. Photos that the importers provided of the factory construction process, which was scheduled to be completed in October 2020, also showed that walls were not fully complete by August of that year.

“In the final determination of evasion, CBP considered such information, finding it unpersuasive, noting that additional equipment was installed after PTNNI’s reported production start date,” the agency said.

Meanwhile, trade data the petitioner submitted generally backs CBP’s original evasion determination because this information documents substantial shipments of glycine from a Chinese affiliate of Newtrend Group, CBP said.