The Court of International Trade dismissed a challenge to the results of a sunset review that resulted in the 2010 revocation of the antidumping duty orders on stainless steel sheet and strip from Italy, Germany, and Mexico due to lack of injury to U.S. industry in the foreseeable future. The International Trade Commission had premised its determination on ThuyssenKrupp’s construction of a stainless steel plate production facility in the U.S., as well as its shift to a “local supply strategy” where the company planned to serve the North American market with stainless steel plate sourced from the U.S. and Mexico. ThuysssenKrupp also vested its vice president of the U.S. division with veto power over imports from other affiliates, including those from Italy, Germany and Mexico, the ITC said. As such, the company had effectively become a U.S. industry. In dismissing the case, CIT said the domestic plaintiffs did not prove that the ITC’s conclusions on cumulation, volume effects, and price effects were unreasonable interpretations of the evidence.

The Court of International Trade affirmed the results of a remand of the final determination in the countervailing duty investigation of multilayered wood flooring from China (C-570-971). In August, CIT remanded the International Trade Administration’s finding that two respondents were uncooperative because they didn’t respond to the quantity & value questionnaire in the investigation. Later in the proceeding, and at the ITA’s request, the two companies placed evidence on the record that the ITA used the wrong names for the firms. The ITA said the submissions were untimely, and assigned the companies an adverse facts available rate. In its remand, CIT ordered the ITA to consider the evidence. The plaintiffs supported the remand redetermination, so CIT affirmed.

The International Trade Administration’s new methodology for determining surrogate wage rates in antidumping proceedings for non-market economies (NME) is reasonable, but the ITA must choose the surrogate country based on evidence, and not simply because it is used to value other inputs, said the Court of International Trade as it remanded in part the final results of the 09-10 AD review of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from Vietnam (A-552-802). CIT also affirmed the ITA’s use of zeroing in the administrative review.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the International Trade Commission’s finding of no Section 337 violations by SMC’s imports or sales of connecting devices for use with modular compressed air conditioning units (337-TA-587). Norgren, which filed the original patent complaint, contested the ITC’s finding that its patent was obvious and therefore invalid, noting that ITC had found the patent nonobvious prior to a 2009 CAFC reversal of a different issue associated with the case. CAFC said it vacated the ITC’s obviousness determination in the first remand, allowing the ITC to revisit its determination in light of the new claim construction that resulted from the remand. The ITC also considered new evidence when making its determination, CAFC said. Judge Moore issued a dissenting opinion.

Yama Ribbons and Bows appealed a Sept. 14 Court of International Trade decision affirming a 1.56 percent countervailing duty rate in the investigation of certain narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from China (C-570-953). Yama argued that it was affiliated with a Hong Kong company, and so the International Trade Administration should have used sales from the company based in Hong Kong to the U.S. to calculate its CV duty rate. Instead, the ITA used sales from Yama, which is based in China, to the Hong Kong company. When the ITA used sales from China to Hong Kong in its preliminary determination, Yama was assigned a de minimis CV duty rate. But the evidence showing Yama was affiliated with the Hong Kong company were only placed on the record of the companion antidumping duty investigation. CIT said the two investigations were separate proceedings, and Yama should have placed the evidence on the record of the CV investigation. The ITA would have violated its own regulations by placing the information on the CV investigation record on its own initiative, it said.

Ninestar Technology filed a petition for Supreme Court hearing on whether it must pay more than $11 million in penalties for violating an exclusion order and cease and desist orders issued in an International Trade Commission patent investigation of ink cartridge imports. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the penalties in February. Ninestar had argued that sale in any country satisfies the “first sale rule,” so its sale of the ink cartridges in China exhaust any U.S. patent claims in a Section 337 proceeding. The company also argued that administrative bodies, such as the ITC, cannot issue punitive penalties for violation of an administrative order. Such a large penalty could only be ordered by an Article III court after a fair trial, it said.

The Court of International Trade affirmed a redetermination of Taiwanese company Far Eastern New Century Corporation’s (FENC) antidumping duty rate for the 2009-10 AD administrative review of polyester staple fiber from Taiwan (A-583-833). FENC had alleged an error by the International Trade Administration in calculating its AD rate, but the ITA said it did not commit an error. After FENC file suit, however, the ITA spotted its error and requested a voluntary remand. FENC’s AD rate for the 2009-10 period of review will fall from 2.92 percent to 0.75 percent as a result of the recalculation.

Two former importers of highway motorcycles, recreational vehicles and small spark ignition engines agreed to pay a combined civil penalty of $50,000, to settle with the EPA and Justice Department to resolve Clean Air Act violations, the government said. The defendants, Yuan Cheng International Group and NST Inc., of Montclair, Calif., allegedly imported and sold vehicles and engines from China in violation of Clean Air Act requirements. The government alleged that the companies imported and introduced into commerce 17,521 recreational vehicles, highway motorcycles and nonroad spark ignition engines without proper EPA certifications between 2006 and 2011. In the fall of 2010, NST agreed to pay $250,000 to the state of California to resolve similar violations concerning the illegal sale of uncertified vehicles.

Telebrands appealed the Court of International Trade’s ruling that affirmed CBP’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification of its PedEgg foot callus remover as other cutlery rather than a pedicure set, according to a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docketing notice. CIT said in a Sept. 6 opinion that the PedEgg is not a set because it is a single instrument, even though the device includes both a blade and emery pads to remove excess skin.

Two Pakistani nationals were indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia Nov. 6 on charges that they operated Internet sites that illegally shipped pharmaceuticals from Pakistan and the U.K. to the U.S. Sheikh Waseem Ul Haq, 39, and Tahir Saeed, 50, are accused of operating Internet sites that, since late 2005, illegally shipped $2 million of pharmaceuticals to customers worldwide, including nearly $780,000 in sales to U.S. purchasers. The drugs shipped into the U.S. included methylphenidate (sold as Ritalin); various anabolic steroids; alprazolam (sold as Xanax); diazepam (sold as Valium), lorazepam (sold as Ativan), and clonazepam (sold as Klonapin).