The International Trade Administration is seeking comment on any subsidies, including stumpage subsidies, provided by certain countries exporting softwood lumber or softwood lumber products to the U.S. during the period July 1 through Dec. 31, 2012. Comments are due by May 28.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department’s decision on remand to reverse a scope ruling, finding Welcom’s Magna Cart MCK utility cart to be outside the scope of the antidumping duty order on hand trucks from China (A-570-891). Commerce had originally found the utility cart to be in scope, because not all telescoping tubes in the frame were under 5/8 inch. But Welcom argued, and the court agreed in September, that the agency’s determination went against prior scope rulings 12100103. Welcom supported Commerce’s reversal on remand, and so did the court.
The Court of International Trade awarded Tianjin Magnesium International to pay over $40,000 in attorney fees and costs to the U.S. government and US Magnesium for its misconduct in court proceedings related to an antidumping duty administrative review on pure magnesium from China. The government was awarded its requested amount of $8,302.20 in full, but the court heavily reduced the $215,572.43 requested by US Magnesium to $34,042.72. The company should have gone off the “Laffey Matrix” of average attorneys fees, rather than the fees it actually billed, which ranged from $150 per hour for a paralegal to $645 an hour for a partner. CIT had originally said the fees and costs would be awarded in a November opinion (see 12112329).
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website April 24, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)
The International Trade Commission is publishing notices in the April 24 Federal Register on the following AD/CV injury, Section 337 patent, and other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will appear in another ITT article):
Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the following voluntary recalls April 23 (country of manufacture in parentheses):
On April 23 the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
On April 23, the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes April 23 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a proposed rule that would overhaul its plants for planting regulations by moving plant-specific requirements to the Plants for Planting Manual. The removal of the requirements from the regulations would allow for a quicker notice-based process for changing conditions on importation, as opposed to the cumbersome formal rulemaking process currently used, APHIS said. The move would also make it easier to find importation requirements for importers and inspectors, by organizing conditions by the affected plant, rather than by the requirement itself. Comments on the proposed rule are due by June 24.