Sales of goods warehoused in Canada to U.S. customers were not “domestic sales,” but sales “for exportation to the U.S. that should be appraised using transaction value, the Department of Justice said in a brief filed Nov. 19 at the Court of International Trade (Midwest-CBK, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 17-00154). The brief comes in reply to a filing from Midwest-CBK that argued CBP improperly valued the relevant entries because they were “domestic sales,” ordered by U.S. customers from Midwest-CBK’s U.S. sales force, and title transferred after delivery FOB in Buffalo (see 2111080068). DOJ said “domestic sales” is not a term found in the customs laws, and the sale meets all the requirements for a good sold for U.S. export.
Antidumping duty respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes and Pipes Ind. filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade over the Commerce Department's denial of part of its responses in an AD administrative review. The company challenges Commerce's rejection of its questionnaire responses for being untimely filed for being nearly two hours late, despite COVID-19-related technical difficulties. The decision was especially egregious since Commerce granted itself lengthy extensions to meet deadlines in the review, the company said (Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipes Ind. LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00587).
Plans to update statutory language to allow for CBP to use advance cargo data "for any lawful purpose" is an early area of concern among trade groups that submitted comments to the office of Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., about a draft customs modernization bill (see 2111030039). That provision "is a significant amendment to the Trade Act of 2002 manifest requirements and will present a challenge regarding how the agency will merge and crosscheck data received from multiple parties," the Express Association of America told Cassidy, EAA Executive Director Michael Mullen said by email.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Components shortages forced manufacturing shutdowns for Sonos and will continue into 2022, said Chief Financial Officer Brittany Bagley on the company’s Q4 fiscal 2021 earnings call Wednesday for the quarter ending Oct. 2. The company expects holiday quarter revenue to fall below fiscal Q1 a year ago, and due to supply constraints “we won't be running typical promotional environments in Q1,” Bagley said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a notice of noncompliance Nov. 15 to counsel for the U.S. government in a case involving Section 232 duties. The notice said only one attorney may serve as principal counsel for each party. Two Department of Justice attorneys, Stephen Tosini and Kyle Beckrich, currently are listed in the docket as counsel for the U.S., with both marked to receive notice. Tosini is listed as the lead counsel and Beckrich as the counsel of record. The Federal Circuit said that "a party's failure to timely file a corrected document curing all defects identified on this notice may result in this document being stricken (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. , #21-2066).
The Commerce Department has the authority to modify the scope of an antidumping duty investigation in response to evidence of evasion to ensure that the ultimate order "provides an effective remedy," the Department of Justice argued in a Nov. 12 brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DOJ also backed the actual scope decision at issue in the case itself, asserting it was based on substantial evidence that showed Chinese companies were planning to use the original crushed glass exclusion to evade Commerce's AD/CVD orders on quartz-glass product (M S International, Inc., et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1679).
The DOJ further argued for the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions since the 19 entries that are the subject of litigation have not been liquidated. In a Nov. 12 brief filed at the Court of International Trade, DOJ said that the plaintiffs, Borusan Mannesmann and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, wrongly argue that their protests don't concern the tariff classification of their merchandise. The protests at issue seek use of a tariff exclusion, which is a challenge of the tariff classification, DOJ said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., v. U.S., CIT #21-00186).
In remand results filed at the Court of International Trade, the Commerce Department continued to find that antidumping respondent Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co. has failed to establish its eligibility for a separate rate, making it part of the China-wide entity, and that the application of Commerce's non-market economy definition to Jinqiao Flooring was reasonable. The remand results relied heavily on a June U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case, China Manufacturers Alliance v. U.S., which established that China-wide rates can still be based on adverse facts available even if no members of the country-wide entity were found to be uncooperative (Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group Co., Ltd., v. United States, CIT #18-00191).