Court of International Trade

The Court of International Trade remanded the 2010-11 antidumping duty administrative review of frozen warmwater shrimp from Thailand (A-549-822), ordering the Commerce Department to reconsider its decision not to calculate an individual AD rate for Marine Gold Products Limited. Marine Gold hadn’t been selected as a mandatory respondent to the review, but had volunteered for review in the hopes of getting an individual AD rate. Commerce declined, citing the undue burden individual review of Marine Gold would place on the agency. But as it did in its July 2012 Grobest decision (see 12080205), the court held Commerce didn’t show that review of Marine Gold would be an “undue” burden beyond what is faced in a normal administrative review.

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 2 overturned CBP’s classification of Alpinestars’ motocross boots in a tariff classification case that largely revolved around whether a mixed-material footwear upper should be considered plastic or leather. The agency’s application of U.S. Note 4(a) to Chapter 64 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule was overly restrictive, the court ruled. The plastic parts that formed part of the surface area of the uppers should have been disregarded as accessories or reinforcements pursuant to Note 4(a), leaving the leather underneath to be used as the basis for classification, CIT said.

The Court of International Trade on July 31 sustained part of the subsidy rate calculated for Hyundai Hysco in the 2009 countervailing duty administrative review of corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products from South Korea (C-580-818). Domestic company U.S. Steel challenged the interest rate benchmark used to determine the amount of subsidy Hysco received from a South Korean government loan program. The Commerce Department had compared an agency-constructed monthly average interest rate with the variable rate loan Hysco actually received. It eventually found the loan program to be not countervailable, because the benefit was de minimis. U.S. Steel said Commerce couldn’t use an “artificial” benchmark to value the subsidy. But CIT was “not convinced” that a constructed benchmark is necessarily artificial, and found Commerce’s actions were within agency discretion.

The Court of International Trade again rejected the Commerce Department’s reasoning for choosing Bangladesh as the “surrogate country” to value Camau Frozen Seafood’s labor input in the 2009-10 antidumping duty administrative review of frozen shrimp from Vietnam (A-552-802), again remanding the final results. CIT had first sent the case back in December (see 12111602). Commerce had once again explained that it used Bangladesh to value all of Camau’s other inputs, so using the same surrogate for the company’s labor input would avoid distortion. But the court said that wasn’t enough, because Commerce didn’t address arguments that the Bangladeshi labor data was itself distorted.

The Court of International Trade remanded several aspects of the antidumping investigation on multilayered wood flooring from China (A-570-970) for agency reconsideration, including valuation of several surrogate inputs for Chinese companies Layo and Samling, as well as the way Commerce applied its targeted dumping analysis. Remands on several issues were requested by Commerce, and were granted despite opposition from domestic industry.

Corporate officers can’t normally be held liable for their corporations’ negligent misstatements on entry documentation, said the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit July 30, reversing a lower court ruling. The Court of International Trade had in 2011 found Harish Shadadpuri liable for criminal penalties under 19 USC 1592 because of his actions as president of Trek Leather, which had admitted gross negligence in its failure to declare assists when valuing merchandise (see 11062115). CAFC said the lower court shouldn’t have, because only the importer of record (in this case Trek) can be held to the reasonable care standard for negligence purposes. To get a Section 592 conviction against a corporate officer, the government either has to “pierce the corporate veil” or allege fraud, CAFC said.

In a tariff classification case on clocks that forecast the weather (or meteorological instruments that tell the time), the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 25 voided the judgments of both the lower court and CBP, finding in favor of importer La Crosse Technology. The dispute centered on whether the devices should be classified as clocks, thermometers/barometers/hygrometers, or meteorological instruments. CBP had said they’re all clocks, while the Court of International Trade had classified various models in each of the three categories. La Crosse on appeal argued the devices should all be classified as meteorological instruments because that subheading fully describes them. The appeals court agreed, but for different reasons.

The Court of International Trade rejected Marsan’s challenge to the 2009-2010 antidumping duty administrative review of pasta from Turkey (A-489-805), finding the company wasn’t entitled to a lower AD duty rate because of affiliation with another Turkish exporter. In the final results, Commerce had said a common officer serving on the board of another subsidiary of Birlik/Bellini’s parent company and Marsan’s board was not an “affiliated person” under AD duty law. Marsan was assigned the all others AD duty rate of 51.49 percent as a result. If Commerce had found differently on the affiliation issue, it would have received Birlik/Bellini's lower AD rate The court found the challenge deficient because the company didn’t demonstrate the board member actually exercised control over Marsan, it said.

CBP turned down a request from Microsoft that the agency repeal a previous ruling that found some updated Motorola Mobility products to fall outside of an exclusion order issued by the International Trade Commission (ITC). The June 24 rulings, recently posted online by CBP, led to a Microsoft lawsuit against the agency filed earlier this month.

The Commerce Department will reexamine another antidumping duty proceeding on frozen shrimp from Vietnam, after the Court of International Trade remanded the final results of two 2011 new shipper reviews for IDI Corporation and Thien Ma Seafood Company (THIMCO). Both companies had received zero rates. As it had in an earlier challenge to an administrative and new shipper review (see 13052327), the court remanded for Commerce to reconsider its surrogate values used to calculate the value of fish waste and fish skin inputs for the respondents, as well as its selection of Bangladesh as the surrogate country.