Justia International Trade Opinion Summaries

Realtek Semiconductor Corporation appealed a decision by the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) regarding a motion for sanctions against DivX, LLC. DivX had filed a complaint alleging a violation of 19 U.S.C. § 1337 by Realtek and others, which was later withdrawn. Realtek then sought sanctions against DivX for alleged misconduct occurring months prior. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) denied the motion on procedural grounds, and the ITC adopted this decision without comment.Realtek petitioned for the ITC to issue a show cause order sua sponte, which the ITC declined to do. Realtek argued that the ITC's failure to issue the order violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The ITC and DivX contended that the appeal should be dismissed due to lack of standing, jurisdiction, and because the decision was unreviewable.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and determined that the ITC's decision not to issue a show cause order sua sponte was within its discretion and thus unreviewable under the APA. The court noted that such decisions are committed to agency discretion by law and are not subject to judicial review. Consequently, the court dismissed Realtek's appeal. View "REALTEK SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION v. ITC " on Justia Law

Appellants, including GL B Energy Corporation and others, were accused of transshipping xanthan gum from China through India to evade antidumping duties imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) initiated an investigation based on allegations from CP Kelco U.S., a domestic producer, and found substantial evidence that the xanthan gum was of Chinese origin and subject to antidumping duties. Customs applied adverse inferences against the manufacturers for not cooperating with information requests, concluding that the merchandise was transshipped to evade duties.The United States Court of International Trade (CIT) reviewed the case and affirmed Customs' determinations. The CIT dismissed claims related to finally liquidated entries for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, as the importers failed to timely appeal the denial of their protests. The CIT also denied the remaining motions for judgment on the agency record, finding that Customs' determinations were supported by substantial evidence and were not arbitrary or capricious.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court agreed with the CIT that Customs' evasion determinations were supported by substantial evidence and were in accordance with the law. The court also found that the CIT had jurisdiction to review the evasion determinations, even for finally liquidated entries, based on the precedent set in Royal Brush Mfg., Inc. v. United States. However, the court affirmed the CIT's decision, noting that the CIT would have denied the motions for judgment on the agency record for the same reasons stated for the other entries. The court concluded that Customs' evasion determinations were lawful and supported by substantial evidence. View "ALL ONE GOD FAITH, INC. v. US " on Justia Law

Pirelli Tyre Co., Ltd. (Pirelli China), a foreign producer and exporter of certain tires, sought to establish independence from the Chinese government to obtain a separate antidumping duty rate. The United States Department of Commerce conducted an administrative review of merchandise covered by a 2015 antidumping-duty order for tires from China, covering entries between August 1, 2017, and July 31, 2018. Commerce applied a rebuttable presumption that all exporters within China are subject to government control, assigning a PRC-wide antidumping-duty rate unless the exporter demonstrates sufficient independence.The United States Court of International Trade (Trade Court) upheld Commerce’s determination that Pirelli China had not demonstrated its independence from government control. Commerce found that Pirelli China did not show autonomy from the Chinese government in selecting its management, a key criterion for obtaining a separate rate. Pirelli China’s arguments based on Italian law were rejected because the relevant provisions were not included in the record.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the Trade Court’s decision. The court held that Commerce’s interpretation of the rebuttable presumption and its requirement for Pirelli China to demonstrate autonomy from government control were reasonable. The court also found that Commerce’s determination was supported by substantial evidence, including the indirect ownership and control by state-owned enterprises and the shared management between Pirelli entities and Chinese government-controlled entities. The court concluded that Commerce acted within its discretion in rejecting Pirelli China’s unsupported interpretations of Italian law and upheld the assignment of the PRC-wide antidumping-duty rate to Pirelli China. View "PIRELLI TYRE CO., LTD. v. US " on Justia Law

Oman Fasteners, LLC, a foreign producer and exporter of steel nails, was subject to a 2015 antidumping-duty order by the U.S. Department of Commerce. During the 2020-2021 administrative review, Oman Fasteners submitted a response to Commerce's detailed questionnaire 16 minutes past the 5:00 PM deadline. Commerce rejected the late submission and applied an adverse inference, resulting in a 154.33% antidumping-duty rate for Oman Fasteners.Oman Fasteners challenged Commerce's decision in the Court of International Trade (Trade Court), seeking a preliminary injunction against the imposition of the 154.33% duty rate. The Trade Court consolidated the preliminary injunction proceeding with a trial on the merits and held that Commerce abused its discretion. The court remanded the case to Commerce for recalculation and issued an injunction limiting cash deposits to the pre-existing 1.65% rate.Mid Continent Steel & Wire, Inc., a domestic steel-nail producer, intervened and filed an interlocutory appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit concluded that Mid Continent had standing and that the appeal was not moot. The court affirmed the Trade Court's injunction, agreeing that Commerce's application of the 154.33% rate was unsupported by substantial evidence and constituted an abuse of discretion. The court noted that the slight delay in submission did not justify such a punitive rate and that the balance of hardships favored Oman Fasteners, which faced irreparable harm without the injunction. View "OMAN FASTENERS, LLC v. US " on Justia Law

Risen Energy Co., Ltd. (Risen), a Chinese exporter of solar cells, was subject to an antidumping order by the Department of Commerce (Commerce). In the Sixth Administrative Review, Commerce used surrogate values from Malaysia to calculate normal values for Risen's products. Risen challenged Commerce's surrogate value calculations for its backsheet and ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA) inputs, as well as the overhead ratio calculation.The United States Court of International Trade (Trade Court) initially found Commerce's surrogate value calculations for Risen's backsheet and EVA inputs unsupported by substantial evidence and remanded the matter for further explanation. Commerce then provided additional evidence from ASTM standards to support its choice of HTS categories for these inputs, which the Trade Court sustained. However, the Trade Court upheld Commerce's surrogate financial ratio calculation for overhead despite some reservations about Commerce's rationale.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court affirmed Commerce's use of the HTS categories for "sheet" to value Risen's backsheet and EVA inputs, finding the decision supported by substantial evidence. However, the court found Commerce's surrogate overhead ratio calculation unsupported by substantial evidence. The court noted that Commerce's reliance on the Hanwha financial statement and the IFRS standard was unclear and speculative.The Federal Circuit affirmed the Trade Court's decision regarding the surrogate value calculations for backsheet and EVA inputs but vacated the decision on the surrogate overhead ratio calculation. The case was remanded to Commerce for further proceedings to provide substantial evidence for its overhead calculation. View "Risen Energy Co., LTD. v. United States" on Justia Law

The case involves a dispute over the distribution of interest associated with antidumping and countervailing duties under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA). Plaintiffs, who are affected domestic producers, argued that the United States Customs and Border Protection (Customs) unlawfully excluded delinquency interest from the distributions they were entitled to receive under the CDSOA. Customs had been distributing only interest charged on antidumping and countervailing duties at liquidation, as specified by 19 U.S.C. § 1677g, and not delinquency interest assessed under 19 U.S.C. § 1505(d).The United States Court of International Trade (CIT) initially dismissed claims related to distributions made more than two years before the complaints were filed, citing the statute of limitations. The CIT found that the Final Rule published by Customs in 2001 provided adequate notice of its decision to exclude delinquency interest. The CIT also denied plaintiffs' motions for reconsideration, maintaining that the Final Rule sufficiently informed the public of Customs' decision. Finally, the CIT denied plaintiffs' motions for judgment on the agency record, holding that the CDSOA did not require Customs to distribute delinquency interest.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the CIT's decisions. The Federal Circuit held that the Final Rule provided adequate notice of Customs' decision to exclude delinquency interest, thus supporting the CIT's dismissal of claims outside the two-year statutory period. The court also concluded that the CDSOA unambiguously excludes delinquency interest from distributions to affected producers. Therefore, the court affirmed the CIT's judgment in favor of the government, upholding Customs' practice of excluding delinquency interest from CDSOA distributions. View "ADEE HONEY FARMS v. US " on Justia Law

The case involves an appeal by Marmen Inc., Marmen Énergie Inc., Marmen Energy Co., the Government of Québec, and the Government of Canada against a decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce had imposed countervailing duties on imports of certain utility scale wind towers from Canada, arguing that the Canadian government had provided illegal subsidies to the producers and exporters of these towers.The case was initially reviewed by the United States Court of International Trade, which upheld the Department of Commerce's decision. The appellants then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.The appellants argued that the Department of Commerce had erred in its assessment of three government programs and its computation of the sales denominator used to calculate the subsidy rate. They contended that the subsidy rate should have been de minimis, meaning it was too trivial or minor to merit consideration.The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the judgment of the U.S. Court of International Trade, ruling that the Department of Commerce's determination was supported by substantial evidence and was in accordance with the law. The court rejected the appellants' arguments, finding that the Department of Commerce had reasonably determined that the auditor's adjustment was unreliable, and that the three subsidy programs at issue did provide countervailable subsidies. View "GOVERNMENT OF QUEBEC v. US " on Justia Law

The case involves an appeal by Wheatland Tube Company against a decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade, which affirmed the U.S. Department of Commerce’s remand determination concerning the scope of an antidumping duty order on certain steel pipes imported from Thailand. The dispute centers on whether certain imports of steel pipes, specifically those that are "dual-stenciled" as both standard pipes and line pipes, fall within the scope of the existing antidumping duty order.The U.S. Court of International Trade initially found that the Department of Commerce unlawfully expanded the scope of the antidumping duty order by determining that it covered dual-stenciled pipes. On remand, the Department of Commerce, under protest, concluded that the antidumping duty order did not cover dual-stenciled pipes. The U.S. Court of International Trade sustained this determination.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade. The Court of Appeals held that the Department of Commerce’s initial determination that dual-stenciled pipes fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence. The Court of Appeals found that the lower court's interpretation lacked support in the record and failed to give sufficient deference to the Department of Commerce under the substantial evidence standard of review. View "SAHA THAI STEEL PIPE PUBLIC COMPANY LIMITED v. US " on Justia Law

In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was asked to review a decision by the United States Court of International Trade. The dispute arose from an anti-dumping investigation conducted by the Department of Commerce into the sale of certain welded carbon steel pipes from Thailand, specifically those sold by Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company Limited and Thai Premium Pipe Company Ltd.The Department of Commerce initially found that the costs of producing these pipes were distorted by a "particular market situation" (PMS) in Thailand that affected the cost of hot rolled steel coil, a crucial component in the production of these pipes. As a result, the Department made upward adjustments to the production costs of these companies when calculating the anti-dumping margins, which impacted the duty rates assigned to each company. This decision was challenged in the Court of International Trade, which found that the Department had overstepped its statutory authority.The Court of International Trade ruled, based on the precedent set in Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, that the Department of Commerce was not allowed to make a PMS adjustment to the cost of production when determining anti-dumping margins. The court remanded the case to the Department to recalculate the dumping margins without the PMS adjustment.The case was subsequently appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appellant, Wheatland Tube Company, argued that this case could be distinguished from Hyundai Steel because the Department had relied on a subsection of the statute to adjust the cost of production upward to account for a PMS by framing it as a constructed value calculation. The Court of Appeals disagreed, affirming the lower court's decision and holding that the statute does not authorize PMS adjustments to cost of production calculations, regardless of how the Department attempted to frame it. View "SAHA THAI STEEL PIPE PUBLIC COMPANY LIMITED v. US " on Justia Law

In 2018, Presidential Proclamation 9693 imposed duties on imports of solar panels, starting at 30% and scheduled to decrease each year to 25%, 20%, and in the final year, 15%. Importers of bifacial solar modules, consisting of cells that convert sunlight into electricity on both the front and back of the cells, petitioned the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), asking that bifacial solar panels not be subjected to the duties. Ultimately, bifacial solar panels were excluded from the duties. In October 2020, Presidential Proclamation 10101, “modified” Proclamation 9693 to withdraw the exclusion of bifacial solar panels from the scheduled duties, and to increase the fourth-year duty rate to 18%. IImporters of bifacial solar panels sued, alleging that the statute authorizing the President to “modify” Proclamation 9693 only allowed him to make previously adopted safeguard measures more trade-liberalizing while eliminating the exclusion of bifacial panels and raising the fourth-year duty were trade-restrictive. They further argued that even if the President had the authority to “modify” safeguards in a trade-restrictive direction, he failed to follow appropriate procedures.The Trade Court agreed that the authority to “modify” a safeguard is limited to trade-liberalizing changes but rejected the procedural challenges under the Trade Act, 19 U.S.C. 2251. The Federal Circuit reversed. The President’s interpretation of the statute, which allows him to “modify” an existing safeguard in a trade-restricting direction, is not unreasonable. In adopting Proclamation 10101, the President committed no significant procedural violation. View "Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States" on Justia Law