The Court of International Trade sustained the final results of the 2008-09 antidumping duty administrative review on polyethylene film, sheet, and strip from the United Arab Emirates, in a Jan. 8 decision recently released to the public. JBF RAK disputed the Commerce Department’s use of zeroing in the review, as well as its policy of issuing liquidation instructions 15 days after the final results of the review. CIT refused to hear either argument. The zeroing question has been resolved by other court cases, and JBF RAK failed to bring up the 15-day liquidation policy with Commerce during the review, as required by the principle of exhaustion of administrative remedies. The court also rejected JBF RAK’s challenge to Commerce’s calculation of its home market prices.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Jan. 21 upheld the conviction of the Chief Executive Officer of a medical device importer for making false statements to Food and Drug Administration officials. George John Schulte had been judged guilty by a Colorado U.S. District Court jury in March 2012 of lying to FDA officials to cover up his role in a scheme to test imported medical devices on human patients before they were granted FDA approval.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 rejected arguments from both sides in a customs valuation dispute between the government and an importer of apparel purchased from a related party. CIT ruled against the government’s defense of CBP’s use of transaction value, because it didn’t meet CBP’s own requirement of proof that prices were set according to normal industry pricing behavior. But the court also spurned claims by importer Macclenny Products that the entries of men’s suit jackets from Nicaragua should have instead been appraised using deductive value, because the company didn’t show that the related-party transaction actually affected the price.
A group purporting to represent consumers filed yet another class action lawsuit against Lumber Liquidators for high formaldehyde emissions from the company’s wood flooring products. The Jan. 14 complaint brought by four people in Alabama, Virginia, and New York who bought wood flooring products from Lumber Liquidators follows two other similar lawsuits filed in late November and early December (see 13120432).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Jan. 17 reversed the dismissal of a challenge to the ban on registered lobbyists serving on Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs). The lawsuit from lobbyists representing several trade groups, including the National Retail Federation and the American Apparel & Footwear Association, argues the ban is unconstitutional because it encourages them to limit their First Amendment right to petition the government to be able to serve on the ITACs.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 15 sent back down the results of the 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review on tapered roller bearings from China, ordering the Commerce Department to take another look at the rate it assigned to Changshan Peer Bearing. A change to the way Commerce valued some of the inputs Peer Bearing used to produce its bearings caused the companies AD rate to rise from 5.61% at the preliminary stage to 14.98% in the final results. CIT ruled that Commerce didn’t explain why it changed to the new data for valuing Peer Bearing’s inputs.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 26 ordered the International Trade Commission to take another look at its decision to end the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on bottom-mount combination refrigerator-freezers from South Korea and Mexico. The ITC ended the proceedings in April 2012 with no AD/CV duties imposed after finding domestic industry wasn’t injured by Mexican and South Korea imports (see 12041807). Although it agreed with most of the ITC’s findings, the court said it was concerned that the ITC may have double counted in its calculations when it said that domestic sales were not declining during the period under investigation. The ITC argued that any change would be insignificant and wouldn’t affect its overall negative injury determination, but CIT said it has enough doubts that the ITC needs to go back and make sure.
A federal District Court in Minnesota will allow a breach of contract lawsuit from C.H. Robinson to go forward, denying on Jan. 8 a motion to dismiss the case. The third-party logistics provider says U.S. Sand and its owners failed to pay for the transportation of 8,500 tons of ceramic proppant and sand from China and Wisconsin to the oil fields of North Dakota.
Deckers Outdoor Corp. on Jan. 7 asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal on the tariff classification of its “Uggs” boots. According to Deckers, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision that the boots are “slip on” footwear improperly relied on an internal agency definition of slip-on footwear from CBP’s 1993 “Footwear Definitions” document. If allowed to stand, such reliance on unsupported administrative “fiat” statements would put importers in a difficult position by curtailing their ability to get courts to review tariff classification disputes, says Deckers.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 10 approved penalties totaling $324,687 against an importer for misclassifying entries of wallets and handbags and underpaying customs duties. The court had in October found defendant Lafidale to be liable for penalties after the company failed to defend itself, but didn’t allow the government to collect because of discrepancies in how the penalty amount was calculated (see 13103027). CIT found a correction submitted to the court in December to be a sufficient basis for the penalty amount, and entered judgment in favor of the government.