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).
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed a suit from a group of investors that accused Ericsson of misleading them about elements of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act proceeding. Judge William Kuntz sided with Ericsson, ruling that the investors failed to claim that the company made misstatements since the alleged lies were "immaterial as a matter of law" or not false when made (In Re Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson Securities Litigation, E.D.N.Y. # 22-1167).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Fourteen types of frozen fruit mixtures, five of which contain vegetable ingredients, should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 0811.90.80 as "other" frozen fruits, dutiable at 14.5%, the Court of International Trade ruled. Judge Stephen Vaden said the merchandise is properly classified under heading 0811 since the term "Fruit ... frozen" describes these goods in whole.
The EU adopted the World Trade Organization fisheries subsidies agreement, the European Council announced May 25. The deal prohibits subsidies contributing to illegal and unreported fishing, bars subsidies for fishing on the unregulated high seas and imposes sustainability rules for subsidies in relation to the most vulnerable, overfished stocks. The U.S., Canada, Iceland, Seychelles, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates previously accepted the agreement, which was reached at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in June (see 2305160015). The trade body requires a two-thirds threshold for the agreement to come into effect.
Appellant and importer Smith-Cooper International asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for 3,000 more words in its reply brief as part of a suit on scope case on Vandewater International's steel branch outlets. SCI said appellant Sigma Corp. and the U.S. consented to the request and that good cause exists to allow the company to use more words given the "voluminous nature of the Government’s response brief, covering numerous procedural issues and questions of law and fact." In its reply brief, the government most recently argued that SCI relies too much on industry terms to argue that the steel branch outlets in question are not butt-welded and aren't subject to the antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings from China (see 2304240058) (Vandewater International v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1093).