Skip to main content

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Rules in Favor of the Domestic Curtain Wall Industry

In so doing, the Court of Appeals sides with the Department of Commerce, the Court of International Trade, and the Curtain Wall Coalition.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued its decision affirming the determination by the Court of International Trade (CIT) that curtain wall units and parts fall within the scope of the tariffs on aluminum extrusions imported from China. In affirming the CIT’s decision, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) found that (1) the Curtain Wall Coalition (CWC) companies had standing to file the underlying scope request, and (2) the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) original determination that the curtain wall units and components at issue were included as in-scope merchandise was proper.

Several Chinese curtain wall producers, including Yuanda USA, Shenyang Yuanda Aluminum Industry Engineering Co. Ltd., and Jangho Curtain Wall Americas Co. Ltd, appealed the CIT’s decision made last year.   At that time, the CIT heard the Chinese curtain wall producers’ appeal of the original Department of Commerce (DOC) decision on this matter going back to November 2013.  The CIT upheld Commerce’s decision.

In upholding the CIT’s validation of the DOC’s finding that curtain wall units and parts were not excluded from the scope of the Orders as finished merchandise, the CAFC echoed the CIT in finding that it was “nonsensical” to construe “parts for curtain walls” to mean finished merchandise. Finally, the CAFC validated the DOC’s having declined to consider the additional factors in its scope determination, as the DOC had already properly found that the language of the scope and information in the petition and from the investigations were dispositive in resolving the issue.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Nice Win to Start the Year!

 For months you’ve read my blog posts bemoaning the terrible decisions coming out of Washington D.C. related to our case.  Well, with the New Year, we have a fresh start.  And it’s a good one!  The industry has won its first Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) case involving fencing extrusions.  On December 20, 2023, Fortress withdrew its request for an administrative review, prompting U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) to terminate the administrative review entirely. Termination of the review makes the CBP’s affirmative determination of evasion final.  When terminating the review, CBP clarified that termination does not in any way preclude CBP or other agencies from pursuing additional enforcement actions against Fortress or imposing penalties should the need arise. The other EAPA fencing case is pending, and it appears the respondent is not participating.  We submitted voluntary factual information and the company in question did not submit writte...

Keep That Ram Moving Forward

By Jason Weber, AEC VP of Government Affairs   On June 17 th , the International Trade Commission (ITC) will issue the Final Producer Questionnaire in the Aluminum Extrusion AD/CVD cases .  The questionnaire is due 30 days after it is issued .  As always, we continue to update membership with Trade Alerts as appropriate to keep them informed .  Beyond the Final Producer Questionnaire, key upcoming dates are the Final Hearing on September 9, 2024, the Final Vote on October 23, 2024, and the Final Determination on November 11 , 2024.   In last month’s essentiALs article and Fair Trade blog post, I outlined the recent Department of Commerce (DOC) changes to the 232 Aluminum Tariffs .  In that article, I outlined the following Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes that were removed from the General Approved Exclusions (GAEs):    GAE. 1.A : HTS 7609000000 (Aluminum tube or pipe fittings (for example, couplings, elbows, sleeves);   GAE. 4.A : ...

Aluminum 232 Exclusion/Objection Process in Full Swing

Since our last update, the 232 exclusion/objection process is in full swing.  Over the last several weeks we have continued to refine the workflow and communication of the exclusion requests to make sure membership continues to receive the communications and objects when appropriate. For those members that have been working through the process we at AEC HQ thank you.  If for some reason you’re an AEC Extruder Member who should be receiving these communications, please let me know at jweber@tso.net and we’ll make sure you’re added to the distribution list. Although there are new companies submitting requests, we continue to see the same entities entering the bulk of the exclusion requests.  However, for the most part the exclusion requests are much the same with slight changes here and there.  This does simplify the objection process in a way where similar objections can be filed for multiple exclusion requests. As a reminder, price is not a valid reason for a company...