The Court of International Trade upheld the Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government's provision of electricity was for less than adequate remuneration but did not confer a benefit in a countervailing duty review. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled the agency permissibly analyzed whether the electricity prices paid by all companies, including the two CVD respondents, were consistent with market principles and supported its decision with substantial evidence.
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not apply to criminal cases, the Supreme Court of the U.S. held in an April 17 opinion, opening Turkish state-owned Halkbank up to criminal prosecution for conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the author of the opinion, said the text of the FSIA, which the bank claimed protected it from prosecution, clearly shows it only addresses civil suits. Six of the court's justices sided with Kavanaugh, with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissenting (Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. U.S., Sup. Ct. # 21-1450).
Importer SXP Schulz Xtruded Products needed a protest to properly challenge CBP's failure to apply a Section 232 duty exclusion on four entries of its steel forged and turned bars, the Court of International Trade ruled. Dismissing the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves held that SXP could have filed for an extension of liquidation while it was waiting for the Commerce Department to correct the erroneous exclusion it issued or simply have filed a protest, which would have queued up jurisdiction under Section 1581(a).
The Commerce Department's discretion to decide whether to reopen the record on remand in antidumping duty proceedings "extends to placing surrogate value information on the record, with no restriction that such surrogate values can only be submitted to the record if strictly necessary," exporters Ningbo Master International Trade Co. and Guangzhou Jingye Machinery Co. argued. Submittting comments to the Court of International Trade, the exporters defended Commerce's decision to use Mexican International Labour Organization (ILO) data to value labor in the antidumping duty investigation on refillable stainless steel kegs from China (New American Keg v. United States, CIT # 20-00008).
The Coalition of Freight Coupler Producers refiled a motion to waive the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's redaction limits in a conflict-of-interest proceeding after the court rejected an initial bid to waive the requirements. The coalition asked the court for permission to redact 180 unique words, given that the reasons for redaction are rooted in existing judicial orders and the law, "are narrowly tailored toward" three groups of information grounded in the law and the redaction would not "frustrate the public policy regarding confidentiality in proceedings" at the Federal Circuit (Amsted Rail Company v. ITC, Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).
Dispute panels at the World Trade Organization released panel reports April 17 in cases brought by the EU, Taiwan and Japan and dealing with India's tariff treatment on certain goods in the information and communications technology sector, the WTO announced. In all three cases, the dispute panels found India's duties violated its WTO tariff commitments under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Shipping giant MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. and others caused more than $182,000 in losses to logistics firm C.H. Robinson by mishandling five containers of grapes from Chile, C.H. Robinson said in an April 12 complaint filed in a Pennsylvania district court. The firm said MSC and marine terminal handlers Greenwich Terminals, Gloucester Terminals and Holt Logistics failed to impose "adequate procedures and fumigation facilities" to promptly fumigate the grapes (C.H. Robinson Co. v. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co., E.D. Pa. # 2:23-01384).
The Commerce Department illegally deducted Section 301 China tariff duties from exporter Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co.'s U.S. price in the 2020-21 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China, Fufeng argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. Fufeng added in its seven-count complaint that Commerce improperly decided to directly value energy factors of production in its normal value calculation based on a revision of Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad's preliminary financial ratio calculations (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00068).
The Commerce Department should have considered alternatives to account for an antidumping duty respondent's distorted costs even when faced with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit precedent barring particular market situation adjustments to the sales-below-cost test, Ellwood City Forge argued in comments at the Court of International Trade. One alternative would have been for Commerce to adjust for the PMS under the sales-below-cost test because the relevant exporter's records don't accurately reflect the exporter's costs, the brief said (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00077).