The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department was wrong to deduct Section 301 duties from an exporter’s U.S. price as part of its antidumping duty calculation, that exporter said May 3 in defense of an earlier motion for judgment. It said Section 301 duties aren’t “normal import duties,” but rather remedial “special” duties that statute requires be included in export price calculations (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00068).
The Court of International Trade on May 3 entered judgment for importer Fraserview Remanufacturing after CBP corrected the liquidation status of the company's entries. In January, the trade court said Fraserview didn't need a protest to file suit at the court for entries that were erroneously deemed liquidated while liquidation was suspended (see 2401250039) (Fraserview Remanufacturing v. U.S., CIT # 22-00244).
Importer van Gelder on May 3 moved to set aside the Court of International Trade's dismissal of its case for failure to prosecute, arguing that its counsel "overlooked -- by virtue of a calendaring mistake" -- the new deadline for the case after it was extended on the customs case management calendar (van Gelder v. U.S., CIT # 21-00160).
A domestic petitioner said in a May 3 complaint that the Commerce Department failed to explain why it hadn’t adjusted the conversion costs of a 2021-2022 antidumping duty review’s mandatory respondent even though it had done so in the past (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. U.S., CIT # 24-00070).
The Court of International Trade May 3 dismissed the final charge remaining in a 2002 fraud case brought by the U.S. against an importer, Lee Hunt International, and a few of its sureties, including Frontier Insurance Co. (U.S. v. Lee-Hunt International, Inc., CIT # 02-00816).
A Spanish olive growers industry group, Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa, along with Agro Sevilla Aceitunas and Angel Camacho Alimentacion, brought suit at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's finding that demand for the "prior stage product" is "substantially dependent" on demand for the "latter stage product," in the 2021 review of the countervailing duty order on ripe olives from Spain (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. United States, CIT # 24-00078).
An importer whose products weren’t covered by the revocation of an antidumping duty order -- because the importer filed its end-use certifications with post-summary corrections instead of at entry -- argued in the trade court May 1 it couldn’t have fulfilled the requirements of the underlying changed circumstances review because they hadn’t been released yet (Kiswire Inc. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 22-00181).
The Court of International Trade on May 1 and May 2 dismissed two lawsuits -- one at the behest of the plaintiff, Vinh Hoan Corp., the other for lack of prosecution. Vinh Hoan contested the Commerce Department's final results in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. Plaintiff's counsel Matthew McConkey said the voluntary dismissal was filed after later action from Commerce "demonstrated our issue of concern was moot, especially as our calculated rate was 0%." Importer van Gelder's suit challenging the classification of its floor covering (vinyl tiles) was dismissed because the suit wasn't removed prior to the expiration of the customs case management calendar's period of time of removal (Vinh Hoan Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00077) (van Gelder v. U.S., CIT # 21-00160).
Petitioners filed a motion for judgment May 1 contesting the International Trade Commission’s negligibility finding regarding aluminum extrusions from the Dominican Republic imported from 2022 to 2023. They alleged that the initial data collected by the ITC proved the imports exceeded the negligibility threshold, but that the commission unlawfully altered that data and ignored evidence that imports seem to be increasing over time (U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition v. U.S., CIT # 23-00270).