The Court of International Trade on Aug. 8 sustained the Commerce’s Department’s third remand results in an case that revolved around the constructed value calculation in an antidumping duty review on steel nails from Oman. The trade court found Commerce justified its switch on remand between surrogate companies, despite calls from the exporter under review to use a different company.

The Court of International Trade issued a decision Aug. 8 remanding surrogate value calculations in an antidumping review on activated carbon from China back to the Commerce Department for reconsideration or explanation. While CIT sustained five of the seven surrogate selections at issue in the case, it found the agency failed to explain its surrogate value selection of a dataset for carbonized material and its pick of a company for determining surrogate financial ratios.

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 4 order denied defendant Greenlight Organic and Parambir Singh Aulakh's motion for summary judgment over when the date that customs fraud was discovered for the purpose of finding whether the statute of limitations had ran out. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that the undisputed facts don't back any of three dates floated by the defendants as the date that the U.S. first received evidence of Greenlight's double invoicing scheme. In the scheme, Greenlight is accused of fraudulently misclassifying its Vietnam-origin knit garments. Choe-Groves ordered all parties to file a joint proposed pre-trial order.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 2 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's determination in an antidumping investigation of biodiesel from Argentina. Judges Kimberly Moore, Richard Taranto and Todd Hughes held that tradeable tax credits fall within the regulatory definition of a "price adjustment" and deducted the credits from respondent LDC Argentina's export price. The appellate court also ruled that Commerce's use of an international market price for soybeans in its constructed value calculation for biodiesel does not count as a double remedy even though the U.S. imposed countervailing duties on Argentine soybeans.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 28 opinion held that CBP timely liquidated or reliquidated 10 entries of wooden bedroom furniture. The court ruled that the first clear indication that an injunction against liquidation had ended came from the Commerce Department liquidation instructions, which were sent within the six months prior to liquidation, making the liquidation of the entries timely. Judges Timothy Dyk, Jimmie Reyna and Kara Stoll ruled that the Court of International Trade was right to find in a separate case, which put in place the injunction on the 11 entries under dispute in the present action, didn't unambiguously end the injunction, resulting in a finding that CBP timely liquidated the entries. The judges further held that while one of the entries should have been labeled as being reliquidated because it was deemed liquidated by law, this error was harmless.

The Court of International Trade in a July 25 opinion ruled that the U.S. can't file a counterclaim in a customs case brought by Second Nature Designs, redenominating the counterclaim seeking a different Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading for various decorative items as a defense. Adopting the court's recent decision in a separate customs case, Judge Gary Katzmann held that there is no statutory basis for the U.S. to file a counterclaim. However, the judge granted the U.S.' bid to amend its answer to Second Nature's complaint to incorporate the arguments found in its counterclaim, finding the plaintiff's arguments unconvincing. The importer said the amendment is barred by the finality of liquidation, illegal on Constitutional grounds and unreasonably prejudicial.

The Court of International Trade in a July 20 opinion redenominated the U.S.' counterclaim in a customs case brought by importer Cyber Power Systems as a defense, ruling that the U.S. does not have the statutory authority to make the counterclaim. With the ruling, Judge Claire Kelly denied Cyber Power's motion to toss the counterclaim as moot. The counterclaim sought to reclassify Cyber Powers' cable imports under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8544.42.90. Kelly ruled that none of the sections in the U.S. code cited by the U.S. give a basis for the counterclaim.

The Court of International Trade in a July 14 opinion said that the Commerce Department properly rejected countervailing duty respondent Tau-Ken Temir's questionnaire response as being untimely because it was filed an hour and 41 minutes late. In the CVD investigation on silicon metal from Kazakhstan, counsel for TKT was experiencing computer problems and submitted an extension request an hour and 10 minutes before the filing deadline. Gordon upheld Commerce's rejection of this request, holding that it is not clear why the plaintiffs didn't file an extension earlier and that the respondent didn't put forth a maximum effort to give Commerce the requested information by the deadline.

The Court of International Trade issued a pair of opinions on July 15. In one, Judge Timothy Stanceu sent back the Commerce Department's final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on welded steel pipe products from the United Arab Emirates. Stanceu ruled that Commerce's decision to deny plaintiffs, led by Universal Tube and Plastic Industries, a level-of-trade adjustment was based on unsatisfactory analysis "when viewed according to the statutory criteria and the record evidence on the whole."

The Court of International Trade in a July 12 opinion denied the motion from Kevin Ho, owner and director of importer Atria, to dismiss a penalty action for lack of personal jurisdiction. Judge Timothy Reif said that the U.S. properly identified the "who, what, when, where, and how" of Ho's alleged fraud over the alleged illegal importation of high-intensity discharge headlight conversion kits, so personal jurisdiction was established. However, Reif denied in part and granted in part Ho's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, holding that the U.S. made insufficient factual allegations over Ho's knowledge and intent to violate customs law based on fraud. The judge did give the U.S. the opportunity to amend its complaint.