IKEA Scope Rehearing Denied

Etiketler : Court Decision Customs Law Scope Trade law
Apparently there is some kind of festival of TV commercials starting in a few minutes. I understand it will be punctuated by grown men playing football for millions of dollars. Consequently, I will make this quick.

Consistent with my New Years Resolution to cover scope and other trade-related issues that closely impact customs compliance, here is a note on IKEA Supply AG v. United States. This is a request for a rehearing of a prior decision in which the Court of International Trade held that certain IKEA towel bars are within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. The bars are indisputably aluminum extrusions. In each box, there is mounting hardware that does not constitute aluminum extrusions, but which, according to Commerce, are fasteners. Finished goods are excluded from the scope of the orders. In a scope determination, Commerce held that because the finished towel bars are extrusions and that the only non-extrusion parts of the kits are fasteners, the bars fall within the order. In the first IKEA case, the Court of International Trade affirmed that decision.

This opinion involves an effort by IKEA to have the court reconsider its prior decision. Motions to reconsider are not easy to win. The moving party needs to show that there was an intervening change in the law, newly discovered evidence, clear error, or a need to prevent a manifest injustice.

The CIT did not see any of those reasons here. IKEA's first argument was that the Court failed to consider additional non-extruded components of the towel bar sets. The CIT basically said, "too late." These components were not discussed anywhere in the prior record or court proceedings. Thus, the Court would not consider them now. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that IKEA was not aware of these facts.

The second, and more interesting point, is that the CIT did not have the benefit of the CIT decision in Meridian Products LLC v. United States. In that case, another judge of the CIT held that Commerce needs to consider all of the non-extruded part of the kit, including those it considers to be fasteners. Under that test, there is a likelihood that IKEA might have won.

Sadly for IKEA, but legally correct, CIT judges are co-equal and the prior decision of any one CIT judge does not bind a subsequent judge. Technically, one judge does not even bind himself or herself in a later unrelated case. Thus, the intervening change in law raised by IKEA is really not a change in the law, until the Federal Circuit speaks on the issue. Then, it will be a change in the law.