Court of International Trade

The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s second redo of the final results from the 2004-05 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on heavy forged hand tools, finished or unfinished, with or without handles, from China (A-570-803). CIT had previously said the Adverse Facts Available (AFA) rates of (a) 139.31% applied to Shandong Huarong Machinery Co.’s sales of bars/wedges; and (b) 98.77% applied to Tianjin Machinery Import & Export Co.’s sales of picks/mattocks, were insufficiently corroborated. This time, CIT sustained the ITA’s recalculation of the AFA rates at (a) 47.88%, and (b) 32.15%, respectively, as sufficiently corroborated.

The Court of International Trade affirmed the International Trade Administration’s reliance on information submitted by a Chinese informant demonstrating that Chinese paper company Max Fortune submitted false information in the 2008-09 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on tissue paper products from China (A-570-894). As a result of Max Fortune’s alleged deception, the ITA imposed an adverse facts available rate of 112.64% in the proceeding, which CIT also affirmed.

The Court of International trade remanded the final results of another administrative review to the International Trade Administration for zeroing, despite the ITA’s argument that plaintiff Sucocitrico Cutrale didn’t exhaust its administrative remedies by raising the argument in its case briefs during the review.

The Court of International Trade said it will hear a challenge of the “acquisition clause” of the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Act of 2000 (CDSOA, commonly known as the Byrd Amendment), which says a company must not have been acquired by a company or business that is related to a company that opposed the investigation in order to qualify for CDSOA disbursement.

The Court of International Trade sustained the final results of the International Trade Administration’s 2007-08 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on floor-standing, metal-top ironing tables and certain parts thereof (A-570-888), after Home Products International, which had in April been granted a motion for reconsideration of an aspect of the final results that had resulted in a remand to the ITA, withdrew its challenge. CIT ordered all entries enjoined by this action to be liquidated.

In a case involving U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s tariff classification, and denial of eligibility for NAFTA duty-free entry, of plaintiff’s candied peanuts imported from Mexico in 2007, the Court of International Trade dismissed Rogelio Salazar Cavazos’ claims regarding CBP’s denial of his requested NAFTA importation duty refund claims. CIT said it had no jurisdiction over the matter because Salazar never filed a protest with CBP over its determination of the goods’ NAFTA eligibility. Salazar’s HTS classification protest did not likewise cover NAFTA eligibility, it said, and he was eligible to file a second protest, contrary to his arguments. However, Salazar’s claims challenging CBP’s tariff classification of the goods fall within its jurisdiction, CIT said, because he filed a valid protest that CBP denied, and so did not dismiss those claims.

In a reversal of its previous ruling on the issue, the Court of International Trade agreed to consider the all others rate of 137.65% from the preliminary countervailing duty determination of aluminum extrusions from China (C-570-968), in light of the fact that, although the preliminary determination is not a final agency decision, it carries force because cash deposits are collected from the time of the preliminary determination in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations.

The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s second remand redetermination of the final results of its new shipper review of the antidumping duty order on fresh garlic from China (A-570-831) with respect to Chinese plaintiff Jinxiang Heija Co. Having been ordered to explain the greater weight given to Indian price quotes used to determine normal value that the ITA had found, as opposed to the Indian price quotes found by Heija, the ITA, under protest, afforded all of the price quotes equal weight by using a simple average to determine normal value. Heija’s AD rate fell from 15.37% to zero as a result of the recalculation. Heija did not challenge the ITA’s redetermination, and the CIT found the challenges of U.S. defendant-intervenors lacked merit, and sustained the ITA’s redetermination.

The Court of International Trade ordered the International Trade Administration to redetermine or further explain some aspects of its 2008 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890), including, among other issues, the ITA’s use of zeroing (on voluntary remand), aspects of Chinese manufacturer Fairmont’s¹ partial adverse facts available (AFA) rate, some surrogate values used by the ITA to determine wages for respondents, including the use of Indian wage data, and some financial statements relied on by the ITA in its calculations.

The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration's recalculation of two Chinese companies' labor surrogate values in the final results of the ITA's 2001-02 administrative review of the antidumping order on fresh garlic from China (A-570-831). The ITA requested the voluntary remand in response to a challenge by Jinan Yipin Corporation, Ltd. and Shandong Heze International Trade and Developing Company, in light of the appeals court’s holding in Dorbest Ltd. v. U.S. that the ITA’s former regression-based calculation methodology was contrary to law. Plaintiffs agreed with the redetermined surrogate value.