In its long-awaited ruling in Union Steel v. U.S., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed on April 16 the Court of International Trade’s approval of the practice of zeroing in antidumping administrative reviews, but not investigations.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department’s decision to rescind an antidumping duty new shipper review of fresh garlic from China (A-570-831). Commerce had found that the sales being reviewed to establish Jinxiang Chengda’s AD rate were not commercially realistic, because of their high price, small quantity, and nearly simultaneous timing. The court agreed, noting that high prices could have distorted any AD rate that resulted from the new shipper review. The quantities and timing of the sale indicated that they were not indicative of future commercial behavior either, said the court.

A federal jury in Los Angeles awarded leather goods-maker Coach an $8 million judgment against a customs brokerage and its owner for violating trademark and customs laws. According to Coach, Celco Customs and its owner Shen Huei Feng “Celine” Wang acted as broker for importers that it knew were bringing in counterfeit handbags and wallets.

The Court of International Trade remanded part of the Commerce Department’s final determination from the antidumping duty investigation of polyvinyl alcohol from Taiwan (A-583-841) for the agency to explain the targeted dumping methodology used to find Chang Chun Petrochemical Co.’s AD rate. CCPC argued that Commerce applied the regulation on targeted dumping in effect at the time the investigation was completed in 2011, when it should have applied the targeted dumping rule in effect when the investigation began in 2004. The court said Commerce applied the right regulation, but didn’t apply it properly. The record indicated Commerce applied the regulation in effect in 2004, the court said, but Commerce failed to explain why it applied the targeted dumping methodology to all of CCPC’s sales, and why it eliminated transaction-to-transaction calculation methodology as an alternative to the normal method.

The Court of International Trade ruled that a Wisconsin company may be liable for $6.8 million in unpaid customs duties and related penalties because of its acquisition of the bankrupt entity that committed the alleged violations. Adaptive MicroSystems argued that its earlier acquisition of a company bearing the same name did not make it liable to respond to a penalty notice issued by CBP for the violations. At the time of the sale, the Wisconsin court that authorized the transaction said AMS wouldn’t assume its predecessor’s liabilities. CIT said it wouldn’t follow the Wisconsin court’s instruction, because the state court may have not known all of the facts, and ruled that AMS qualified for an exception to successor liability protections because a corporate officer and part owner of its predecessor also was an officer and part owner of AMS.

The Court of International Trade remanded aspects of the Commerce Department’s 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review on polyethylene retail carrier bags from Thailand (A-549.821) for reconsideration by the agency. The court faulted Commerce’s calculation of respondent Thai Plastic Bags Industry’s general and administrative expenses, as well as its adjustment of respondent Landblue’s surrogate financial statement. Both issues had been raised by domestic petitioners. CIT sustained Commerce’s decision to use surrogate financial statements for Landblue instead of confidential information from TPBI, despite domestic petitioners’ challenge, as well as Commerce’s use of zeroing and its decision to exclude an export-conditional government rebate from TPBI’s cost of production analysis, both in the face of a challenge by foreign respondents and U.S. importers.

Giorgio Foods appealed a Court of International Trade ruling against its disbursement claim for funds collected as antidumping and countervailing duties, pursuant to the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act. Giorgio had indicated no position on questionnaires regarding three AD duty investigations on preserved mushrooms, and opposed another. The court, as in previous cases, found the company’s constitutional arguments had already been decided in previous cases, and said it didn’t have jurisdiction to hear a claim directed against domestic companies that had benefited from CDSOA funds (see 13030803).

Advanced Technology & Materials appealed a March 28 Court of International Trade order granting a preliminary injunction preventing liquidation of entries of diamond sawblades from China that it produced and exported (see 13032902). The entries had been subject to litigation over whether the company should have received a separate rate in the antidumping duty investigation on diamond sawblades from China, but the Commerce Department announced its intent to revoke the AD duty order for AT&M to implement a World Trade Organization ruling against the agency’s use of zeroing. The preliminary injunction prevented liquidation of entries of diamond sawblades from China produced and exported by AT&M, but did not prevent revocation for the company.

The Court of International Trade affirmed the adverse facts available countervailing duty rate assigned to Essar Steel Limited by the Commerce Department in the 2006-07 CV duty review on hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India (C-533-821). The court had previously remanded the final results to Commerce on the basis that it didn’t corroborate the AFA CV rate (see 12101627. In its remand results, Commerce explained that it had taken subsidy rates from similar programs to come up with Essar’s rate. Essar and the Indian government had failed to cooperate in providing information on a specific subsidy program, so the similar programs were all Commerce had to go on, it said.

The Wind Tower Trade Coalition appealed the Court of International Trade’s denial of an injunction preventing liquidation of entries made during the “provisional measures” period between the preliminary determination and antidumping and countervailing duty orders in the investigations of utility scale wind towers from China and Vietnam. The court had ruled March 29 that a previous CIT case had decided the issue of how to interpret the International Trade Commission’s vote pattern in its injury determination, and so the coalition would have had a difficult time proving the ITA improperly ordered liquidation of the entries (see 13040132).