CBP ignored the Court of International Trade's ruling that it needs some finding of culpability before determining that importer Diamond Tools Technology evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on diamond sawblades from China, DTT said in a Feb. 28 brief. Instead, CBP just ignored the court's definitions of the terms "false" and "omission" and illogically claimed that the customs penalty law's establishment of specific degrees of culpability negates the Enforce and Protect Act's culpability requirement, DTT argued (Diamond Tools Technology v. United States, CIT #20-00060).

A Feb. 24 Court of International Trade decision could result in "inching toward a saner and more legally sound approach to origin determinations" involving the substantial transformation test, customs lawyer Larry Friedman of Barnes Richardson said in a blog post Feb. 24. The language in the decision is "generally favorable for a simplified and more reasonable approach to origin," after years of focus on pre-determined end use of assembled components following the trade court's unappealed 2016 decision in Energizer.

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The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to hit affiliated antidumping respondents Ghigi 1870 and Pasta Zara with an adverse inference over their U.S. payment dates in Feb. 28 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. However, the agency dropped the adverse inference on the U.S. sales for which Commerce verified the correct date. The result, if sustained, is a weighted-average dumping margin of 91.74% for Ghigi/Zara (Ghigi 1870 S.P.A. v. United States, CIT #20-00023).

An investigation by CBP into alleged evasion of countervailing duties and antidumping duties on wooden cabinets from China has found substantial evidence of evasion by two importers. In a final EAPA determination, CBP found that importers, Splendid Trading and Superior Granite and Marble, engaged in a scheme to transship Chinese wooden cabinets through Malaysia, announcing that it will continue to suspend liquidation and require cash deposits on entries from the two importers.

Steel giant U.S. Steel argued that it should be able to file an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to support antidumping duty petitioner Welspun Tubular in the company's bid to get a full court rehearing on a key AD question. The rehearing request concerns whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test. U.S. Steel says it can address the importance of PMS provisions in proceedings involving products not made by Welspun (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748).

Neither importer Cyber Power Systems (USA) Inc. nor the U.S. succeeded in persuading the Court of International Trade that their side was right in a tiff over the country of origin for shipments of uninterruptible power supplies and a surge voltage protector. Judge Leo Gordon, in a Feb. 24 order, denied both parties' motions for judgment, ordering the litigants to pick dates on which to set up a trial.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed a case brought by Indian steel company JSW Steel that alleged a conspiracy by four U.S. steel companies to engage in a boycott of JSW via the U.S.'s Section 232 national security tariffs. In the Feb. 17 order, Judge Keith Ellison said that JSW "failed to plausibly allege a conspiracy" regarding the defendant, and didn't sufficiently allege that the defendants knew any specific information about the company's business prospects (JSW Steel (USA) v. Nucor Corp., S.D. Texas #21-01842).

The Court of International Trade denied Wheatland Tube Company's bid for a preliminary injunction in a case seeking to compel CBP to respond to requests for information and a tariff classification ruling relating to Section 232 evasion since Wheatland has not shown a likelihood to succeed on the merits. CBP already responded to Wheatland's requests, so the plaintiff has not shown how it could succeed in the case, Judge Timothy Stanceu said.

A flexible packaging material imported by Amcor Flexibles Kreuzlingen is classifiable as "other" backed aluminum foil, rather than aluminum foil decorated with a pattern or design, the Court of International Trade said in a Feb. 22 decision. Judge Gary Katzmann said that since the text on the foil is communicative text and not a pattern, Amcor's suggested alternative Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading was the proper one, though he rejected the HTS heading most preferred by Amcor.