The Commerce Department properly found countervailing duty respondent Yama Ribbons and Bows received synthetic yarn and caustic soda -- inputs of narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge -- for less than adequate remuneration, the Court of International Trade held in a Dec. 8 opinion. Judge Timothy Stanceu found Commerce permissibly levied adverse facts available for the Chinese government's failure to respond to requests over the provision of the two inputs, and said the agency properly dropped its subsidy rate for China's Export Buyer's Credit Program.
The World Trade Organization issued a series of four rulings Dec. 9 finding that the U.S. Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs set by President Donald Trump violated global trade rules. In the landmark rulings, a three-person panel found that the duties violated Articles I, II, XI and XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The dispute panel said the tariffs, which the Trump administration said were needed to maintain U.S. national security, were not "taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations," as mandated by Article XXI(b)(iii) of national security protections, so the duties violate the GATT.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
CIT Sends Back Use of Financial Statements for Surrogate Financial Ratios in AD Review on Mattresses
The Commerce Department must reconsider its reliance on a financial statement in an antidumping review to calculate surrogate financial ratios, the Court of International Trade ruled in a confidential Nov. 28 opinion made public Dec. 7. Judge Timothy Reif directed Commerce to reconsider or further explain the agency's conclusions that the statements were complete and publicly available. However, the judge did uphold Commerce's surrogate value for pocket coil innerspring units.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer Sun Ray Group and its owner, Jihua "Mike" Liu, face over $15 million in penalties for alleged fraud and lying on customs forms and underpayment duties on vegetable entries. A complaint at the Court of International Trade filed Dec. 6 by the DOJ says that Liu and Sun Ray avoided duties on 216 entries of dried and dehydrated garlic, onion and other vegetables, and also owe nearly $2 million in unpaid duties (United States v. Jihua "Mike" Liu, CIT #22-00330).
The U.S. cannot rely on the Commerce Department's post hoc rationalization of its decision to countervail glass subsidies in a countervailing duty review, plaintiff-appellants, led by Guangzhou Jangho Curtain Wall System Engineering Co., argued in a Dec. 5 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appellants also said that the government did not take new agency action in making its determination, showing a "kind of bait and switch decision-making" decried in a key Supreme Court case (Taizhou United Imp. & Exp. Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. 22-2000).
The EU requested two World Trade Organization dispute settlement panels over trade disputes with China, the European Commission announced. One dispute concerns Chinese trade restrictions on Lithuanian exports and EU exports with Lithuanian content. The other deals with the legality of Beijing restricting EU high-tech patent holders from accessing EU courts. The WTO action comes after bilateral talks over the issues fell through, EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said.
The Commerce Department properly dropped its reliance on an Enforce and Protect Act case to reject third-country sales in an antidumping duty review, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Dec. 6 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann upheld Commerce's remand results, which used respondent Z.A. Sea Food's (ZASF's) Vietnamese sales to calculate normal value in an AD review on Indian products. The domestic shrimp industry had argued Commerce should use constructed value because there is no evidence the shrimp sold in Vietnam was consumed by the Vietnamese customers. Katzmann waived the domestic industry's claims "due to the lack of adequate argument."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: