The 17th Judicial Conference of the Court of International Trade will be Dec. 3 at the in Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York, N.Y., CIT said. Morning breakout sessions will include “Overzealous and Less than Zealous Representation: The Ethical Risks of Playing the Waiting Game,” and “Will the Real Country of Origin Please Stand Up?” In the afternoon, breakout sessions will cover “Getting to Judgment and Beyond: Challenges in Customs Litigation,” and “Next Frontier in Trade Remedy Litigation: Point/Counterpoint.” CIT Chief Judge Donald Pogue will give opening and closing remarks. The agenda for the conference is available here. The registration form is available here.
Court of International Trade
The United States Court of International Trade is a federal court which has national jurisdiction over civil actions regarding the customs and international trade laws of the United States. The Court was established under Article III of the Constitution by the Customs Courts Act of 1980. The Court consists of nine judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is located in New York City. The Court has jurisdiction throughout the United States and has exclusive jurisdictional authority to decide civil action pertaining to international trade against the United States or entities representing the United States.
The Court of International Trade remanded the final results of the 2008-10 antidumping administrative review of steel threaded rod from China (A-570-932) in order for the International Trade Administration to reconsider its rescission of the review with respect to Gem Year and placement of Gem Year in the China-wide entity. The ITA said Gem Year had no entries for which liquidation was suspended to review, ignoring Gem Year’s entries of subject merchandise that had been liquidated due to an error by an unaffiliated importer. But CIT said the ITA’s position that liquidated entries are unreviewable is unjustified by the statute and the regulations, because both only refer to “entries.”
Following further briefing by the parties, the Court of International Trade again took up the issue of whether the Coalition for American Hardwood Parity’s untimely filed challenge to an International Trade Administration antidumping final determination precludes hearing by CIT on jurisdictional grounds. CIT found that it does, and dismissed the challenge without prejudice, but offered to certify its ruling for interlocutory appeal1 before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Alternatively, it said, CAHP can amend its complaint to comply with the time limits.
The Court of International Trade remanded the final results of the 2009-10 antidumping administrative review of wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-552-802) for several reasons, including the International Trade Administration’s use of surrogate values, wage rate calculations, financial statements, decision not to calculate combination AD rates, and zeroing.
In a challenge of the effective date of a partial revocation for certain types of nails that resulted from a changed circumstances review of the antidumping duty order on certain steel nails from China (A-570-909), the Court of International Trade denied plaintiff Itochu’s motion for an earlier effective date because it didn’t exhaust its administrative remedies. Although Itochu, a U.S. importer of nails from China, argued for the earlier effective date before the preliminary determination was issued, it did not file comments on the preliminary determination itself.
The Court of International Trade again remanded an International Trade Administration determination that Legacy Classic Furniture’s furniture that simultaneously functions as a seating bench and a storage unit is subject to the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890). This time, CIT not only ruled against the ITA’s determination that other factors supported inclusion under the AD order, as it did in the first remand, but also questioned whether the ITA should have even examined those factors in light of its reconsideration of whether the scope language was ambiguous.
The Court of International Trade affirmed the countervailing duty rate determined for Yama Ribbons and Bows in the International Trade Administration’s final determination from the CV duty investigation of certain narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from China (C-570-953).
The characteristics of delivered merchandise, rather than the characteristics of merchandise as ordered, govern interpretations of whether the merchandise falls within the scope of an antidumping or countervailing duty order, said the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in reversing an International Trade Administration AD/CV scope determination on stainless steel plate in coils, which had been affirmed by the Court of International Trade.
The Court of International Trade remanded for a third time the International Trade Administration’s adverse facts available (AFA) rate for Orient1 in the 2007 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890). The ITA brought the rate down to 130.81% in its second remand redetermination (from 216.01% in the final results and first remand redetermination), but CIT said the rate is still not within the bounds of commercial reality. CIT also sustained the ITA’s use of another data set to determine the surrogate value for wood inputs.
The Court of Appeals’ decision in Hitachi Home Electronics (America), Inc. v. United States “not only deprives importers of timely review of protests, but also allows Customs to block their access to judicial review,” said the American Association of Exporters and Importers (AAEI) in an amicus brief in support of Hitachi’s request for a Supreme Court hearing. Hitachi is appealing the October 2011 ruling of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the statute does not require CBP to decide customs protests within two years, even though 19 USC 1515(a) says it “shall” do so.