CIT Rules for Commerce on Technicality in Dispute Over Aluminum Extrusions Scope

The Court of International Trade on Dec. 29 sustained a determination by the Commerce Department that refrigerator trim kits imported by Meridian Products are subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China. The court had twice remanded the original scope ruling, and Commerce had in response developed its definition of the “finished goods kits” exemption to AD/CV duties to address the exemption’s application to kits that may not have all necessary parts to assemble a finished product, but that are designed to display or work with interchangeable or customizable components (see 14032701). The dispute now centered on whether Meridian's trim kits "display" or "work with" refrigerators, but CIT found that Meridian failed to adequately raise certain points in legal briefs, and anticlimactically ruled in favor of Commerce after deciding it couldn’t consider Meridian’s arguments.