The Court of International Trade's ruling that steel rebar stakes fall within the scope of a Commerce Department antidumping duty order was correct, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a July 2 decision. CIT last year said that the stakes, which are used for holding up grape vines and other plants, are subject to antidumping duties on steel concrete reinforcing bar from China (see 1803130031). Quiedan Company filed the underlying lawsuit with the assertion that the AD order doesn't apply because one side of the stakes is sharpened to a point and the AD order specifies rebar sold in straight lengths. CAFC, like CIT and the Commerce Department, disagreed. "We see no substantive or procedural error in that ruling or in Commerce’s continuation of a suspension of liquidation for Quiedan’s stakes," CAFC said. "Because the Court of International Trade drew the same conclusions, we affirm."

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 24-30:

The 30-day deadline for lawsuits challenging Commerce Department scope rulings is triggered only by physical mailing by post, and not by email, the Court of International Trade said in a July 1 decision that also sustained Commerce’s determination that aluminum pallets made of 6-series alloys are covered by antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China.

The National Association of Manufacturers filed a motion June 24 seeking court orders invalidating portions of CBP’s recent drawback regulations that bar substitution drawback on excise taxes. As in a complaint filed in April (see 1904180046), the trade association said the regulations issued by CBP following enactment of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2016 ignore lawmakers’ general intention to expand drawback, as well as specific instances where Congress has in the past preserved the ability to claim substitution drawback on excise taxes.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 17-23:

The Supreme Court on June 24 denied a petition from the American Institute for International Steel to hear the trade group’s challenge of the constitutionality of Section 232 tariffs on iron and steel products. AIIS and two steel importers had filed the Supreme Court challenge directly after the Court of International Trade found itself bound by precedent to rule in favor of the government (see 1904160027), despite some concerns that the president’s Section 232 authority may be overly broad (see 1903250032). The overall challenge will continue under an appeal filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, said AIIS lawyer and George Washington University law professor Alan Morrison.

Multiple companies are facing transshipment fines for sending Chinese goods through a special economic zone in Cambodia that is owned by China, Reuters reported on June 19. U.S. Embassy spokesman Arend Zwartjes told Reuters that “the Department of Homeland Security has inspected and fined a number of companies for evading tariffs in the United States by routing goods through Cambodia.” According to Zwartjes, "these companies are located in Cambodia’s Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone.” Neither the U.S. embassy in Cambodia CBP immediately returned a request for comment.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 10-16:

The Court of International Trade upheld on June 17 the denial by CBP of more than $276,275.12 in drawback claims from a video technology importer and exporter as untimely. The trade court found that, under CBP’s now-defunct 1993 drawback regulations, the date of filing is when a complete paper claim has been submitted, not when the electronic summary is transmitted. It also held CBP guidance documents did not give the wrong impression that no paper documentation was necessary for drawback claims.

A California federal court on June 10 declined to hand victory to a whistleblower suing his former employer for allegedly undervaluing imports of herbal supplements to evade payment of customs duties. Travis Kiro, a former account manager for Jiaherb, did not prove that Jiaherb knowingly mislabeled its shipments to pay lower duties to CBP, the Central California U.S. District Court said in the decision.