The Court of International Trade on May 30 rejected the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against Apiario Diamante Comercial Exportadora and Apiario Diamante Producao e Comercial de Mel, collectively doing business as Supermel, in the antidumping duty investigation on raw honey from Brazil. The decision sends back the 83.72% AD rate levied against the exporter.
The Court of International Trade on May 31 said that a duty drawback claim becomes deemed liquidated after one year if the underlying import entries are also liquidated and final, with finality defined as the end of the 180-day window in which to file a protest with CBP.
World Trade Organization members on May 30 held the first formal dispute settlement reform meeting centered on appellate review and accessibility, the WTO announced. Mauritius' Usha Dwarka-Canabady, facilitator of the talks, said that she heard a "strong appreciation for the dispute settlement system" from most of the 46 delegations that shared their views during the discussion.
Congress, federal agencies and state bar associations should work together on new regulations to ensure U.S. lawyers aren't enabling Russia-related sanctions evasion, Stanford Law School lecturer Erik Jensen and a host of law students recommended in a recent report.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 30 issued its mandate following a decision dismissing importer Rimco's challenge of antidumping and countervailing duties on its steel wheel entries for a lack of subject-matter jurisdiction (see 2404080036). The appellate court said jurisdiction would have been proper under Section 1581(c) as a challenge to a Commerce Department decision, instead of under Sections 1581(a) or 1581(i) as asserted by Rimco. The importer challenged the AD/CVD as being excessive under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Rimco v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2079).
Importer Wagner Spray Tech. Corp. told the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department impermissibly used (k)(1) sources to expand the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China when it included the company's finished heat sink manifold under the AD/CVD orders (Wagner Spray Tech. Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00241).
The Canadian government and a group of eight Canadian lumber exporters sought to file an amici curiae brief in a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test to detect "masked" dumping. Filing unopposed for leave to file the briefs on May 28, the parties said they can provide "unique and robust explanations of the Cohen's d denominator, a full understanding of which will" aid the court to settle the issues in the case (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1556).
CBP continued to find that three importers evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China on remand at the Court of International Trade, after providing the companies with access to the confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., CIT # 20-03914).
World Trade Organization members met on May 24 with a delegation from Uzbekistan to discuss the Central Asian nation joining the global trade body, the WTO announced. Members at the meeting highlighted areas where more work is needed, including on the completion of market access agreements. Jamshid Khodjaev, deputy prime minister of Uzbekistan, said his goal is for Uzbekistan to join the WTO by the 14th Ministerial Conference in 2026. The chair of the talks, South Korea's Yun Seong-deok, said the talks occurred just six months after the seventh meeting, demonstrating the "accelerated pace" of the discussions.