The International Trade Administration has issued an amended antidumping duty final determination and order pursuant to a court decision1 for wooden bedroom furniture from China (A-570-890). The ITA is revising the cash deposit rate for Dorbest Limited2 to 2.40% as well as the cash deposit rates for 59 separate rate companies3 to 6.68%. These amended rates, which sources confirm take effect August 13, 2011, are expected to be implemented by CBP soon.
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.
A Chinese manufacturer/exporter challenged the International Trade Administration’s denial of a request for a changed circumstance review to reconsider the use of zeroing in the investigation which led to the AD duty order for diamond sawblades from China. The reason for the request was that after ITA made its final AD determination (but before it issued the AD order), it announced1 that it would no longer use zeroing in investigations. Nevertheless, the ITA argued that it did not need to reconsider its use of zeroing in the sawblades investigation, because its final AD duty rate determination pre-dated the policy change. The Court of International Trade agreed with the ITA, finding the agency’s denial of a changed circumstance review was “not unreasonable.”
The Court of International Trade has ruled that an importer whose identity is alleged to have been stolen and used by another to enter goods that never came into the importer's possession, may not sue for a refund of liquidated damages as the importer failed to seek timely relief under 28 USC 1581(a) by protesting CBP's Notice of Redelivery. CIT stated that had the importer protested the Notice, it could have raised the exact issues raised in this suit.
In Arko Foods International, Inc., v. U.S., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a 2009 Court of International Trade judgment that although mellorine is a dairy product, it is not an article of milk as milk doesn't provide its essential character. Instead, the frozen dairy product it is classifiable as other edible ice.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed and remanded1 a Court of International Trade decision that had barred a surety from suing on a claim that arose after the protest period expired. The litigant, Hartford Fire Insurance Company, claimed that CBP's failure to disclose certain criminal information about its client, an importer of crawfish from China, made its bond voidable at Hartford’s election.
In the May 2007 - April 2008 AD administrative review of pure magnesium from China, the International Trade Administration found documents provided by a supplier to the sole respondent, Tianjin Magnesium International Co., Ltd., had been doctored, and gave Tianjin an adverse facts available rate of 111.73%.
Following the first AD administrative review of certain lined paper products from India, Indonesia, and China, for the period April 17, 2006 through August 31, 2007, the Court of International Trade agreed with domestic producers that the International Trade Administration had failed to articulate a rational connection between the record evidence and its selection of a single Indian company for surrogate financial ratios.
In the December 2007 - November 2008 AD administrative review of carbazole violet pigment 23 from China, the International Trade Administration used a surrogate value for nitric acid of 35.08 Indian rupees per kilogram from a public Indian government source it had rejected in a prior review because it included aberrational high import values.
In the February 2008 - January 2009 AD administrative review of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from India, the International Trade Administration chose to include in the selling expenses of Indian producer Liberty Group/Liberty Frozen Foods Pvt., Ltd. the full amount of a bad debt the company wrote off during the period of review, although the period included only half the firm’s fiscal year.
Following the May 2008 - April 2009 AD administrative review of ball bearings from France, Germany, Italy, Japan, & the U.K., the Court of International Trade refused to dismiss a challenge to two controversial agency practices brought by SKF France S.A. and affiliates. SKF’s complaint cited the International Trade Administration's practice of issuing liquidation instructions 15 days after publishing final results and its practice of zeroing (excluding the value of non-dumped transactions in the dumping margin calculation).