Solar cell exporters JA Solar Technology Yangzhou Co., Shanghai JA Solar Technology Co. and JingAo Solar Co. objected to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's order saying that it will reform the caption to designate the companies as appellees. JA Solar instead asked to remain a plaintiff since it supports appellant Risen Energy even though it did not itself file a notice of appeal. "Second, JA Solar will not be filing or joining any brief in this proceeding, nor does it intend to participate in oral argument," the brief said. The suit is challenging the Commerce Department's surrogate values for silver paste and use partial neutral facts available in the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China (see 2301050026) (Risen Energy Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1550).
The Court of International Trade's recent decision on the customs classification of frozen fruit mixtures supports the government's arguments in a customs spat on importer Second Nature Design's imports of dried botanical items used in home decor, the U.S. said in a notice of supplemental authority. Acknowledging that the trade court's recent opinion in Nature's Touch Frozen Foods v. U.S. is not final, the government nevertheless said that Judge Stephen Vaden's opinion backs its case (Second Nature Designs v. United States, CIT # 17-00271).
Antidumping petitioner Nucor Tubular Products' motion to dismiss a suit on an AD review of steel pipes and tubes from South Korea fails to consider all of exporter HiSteel's claims, the exporter argued in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade. While Nucor claims a Commerce Department reversal of its adjustments to HiSteel's costs and scrap offset as a result of the transactions disregarded rule will not change the company's margin, HiSteel said the true effect on its margin is unknown given its remaining claim against Commerce's differential pricing analysis (DPA) (HiSteel v. U.S., CIT # 22-00142).
The Commerce Department asked the Court of International Trade for a voluntary remand in a countervailing duty case to reconsider its use of an adverse inference against exporter JA Solar Technology Yangzhou Co. related to its alleged use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program since the agency "refined its practice." In its opposition to JA Solar's and Risen Energy Co.'s motion for judgment in a case on an administrative review on solar cells from China, the U.S. said it altered its handling of verifying non-use of the EBCP to only require non-use certifications from all U.S. importers and not all downstream U.S. customers (Risen Energy Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00231).
The Commerce Department decided to use adverse facts available related to antidumping duty respondent Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret's billing adjustments following a Court of International Trade order questioning whether Assan acted to the best of its ability in its remand results submitted to the trade court May 31. The agency also revised the duty drawback adjustment methodology it applied to Assan by dividing the amount of duties exempted by a Turkish duty exemption program during the AD investigation period over the total quantity of exports made under the program to calculate a per-unit drawback adjustment. The result, if sustained, would be a de minimis rate for Assan (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 21-00246).
The Commerce Department didn't adequately explain its decision to include four types of income categories when calculating the financial ratios for surrogate company Ayes Celikhasir in the antidumping duty investigation on metal lockers from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a May 30 opinion. Petitioner and plaintiff List Industries said that if these income categories were excluded from the ratio calculation, Ayes would have been revealed not to be a profitable company, barring it from being used as a surrogate.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ordered parties in a False Claims Act case to file supplemental briefs on whether 19 U.S.C. 1592 has the exclusive means for recovering antidumping duties an importer illegally avoided paying via false statements, or whether the False Claims Act can also be used to recover the duties. Referred to as Section 592, the statute is the part of the Tariff Act of 1930 covering customs penalties for fraud, gross negligence and negligence. The court told the parties, including appellant Sigma Corp. and the U.S., to file the brief by June 26 (Island Industries Inc. v. Sigma Corp., 9th Cir. # 22-55063).
Mediation in a customs penalty case did not result in a settlement, the Court of International said in a May 30 report. Judge Leo Gordon sat as the mediator and declared that the process wrapped up on May 26 without a result. The U.S. filed the suit alleging that Crown Cork & Seal USA misclassified its metal can lid imports, valued at around $51 million, underpaying around $1.3 million in duties between 2004 and 2009. The trade court previously denied Crown Cork's bid to dismiss fraud and gross negligence claims in the case (see 2302280053) (U.S. v. Crown Cork & Seal USA, CIT # 21-00361).
The Court of International Trade overlooked the principle that the Commerce Department has the burden to support its use of the expected method in antidumping cases, importer PrimeSource Building Products argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The non-selected respondent filed the suit to challenge Commerce's decision to weight average two adverse facts available rates when calculating the non-selected respondents' rate in an administrative review on steel nails from Taiwan (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2128).
CBP illegally failed to apply exclusions for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs to eight shipments of hot wrought steel round bars even though the exclusions were granted after the shipments entered the U.S., importer Saarsteel argued in a complaint last week at the Court of International Trade. The company said it is CBP's practice to allow an importer to claim a granted exclusion via a post-summary correction or a protest when the exclusion was granted after the entry was made but "relates back to a submission date covering the entry" (Saarsteel Inc. v. United States, CIT # 21-00271).