The Court of International Trade in a June 13 decision made public June 24 said the Commerce Department properly found that Aussie exporter BlueScope Steel (AIS) didn't reimburse its affiliated importer BlueScope Steel Americas (BSA) for antidumping duties. Sustaining the second review of the AD order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia, Judge Richard Eaton said that Commerce also properly declined to make a "standalone deduction" from the constructed export price for "profit resulting from the further manufacture of the steel in the United States."
Mauritius' Usha Dwarka-Canabady, facilitator of the WTO's dispute settlement reform talks, briefed WTO members on June 20 regarding the start of the formal negotiations process, the WTO announced. Dwarka-Canabady said that after she presented the "work plan on the dispute settlement reform process," members backed the idea of focusing first on appeals and reviews of dispute settlement decisions, then pivoting to the entire package and other issues.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Exporters Guizhou Tyre Co. and Aeolus Tyre Co. said in a June 20 reply brief that the U.S. ignored the manner in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said presumptions operate under the Federal Rules of Evidence (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2163).
Importer Target General Merchandise moved for summary judgment in a customs case on its LED lamps, breaking down its case into two tracks -- one regarding its goods imported in 2014 and the other on its imports entered in 2018 (Target General Merchandise v. United States, CIT # 15-00069).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 21 sustained the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Canada, keeping the CVD rate for respondent Marmen Energy just above the de minimis threshold at 1.18%.
Adam Safwat, a former deputy chief of DOJ's fraud section, has joined Foley Hoag as a partner in the white collar crime and government investigations practice, the firm announced. Safwat will be based in Washington, D.C., and will focus on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, sanctions, political corruption and financial fraud, the firm said. Safwat most recently was a partner at Nelson Mullins.
The EU General Court on June 19 rejected Russian businessperson Igor Rotenberg's bid to be removed from the EU's Russian sanctions list. Rotenberg was sanctioned for holding leadership positions in Russian companies SGM, Gazprom Drilling and Mostotrest and for his association with his father, oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, and with President Vladimir Putin.
The Court of International Trade on June 18 issued an order regarding the bench trial, set for Oct. 21, in a customs case brought by importer Cozy Comfort Co. on its wearable blanket, the Comfy. To prepare for the trial, Judge Stephen Vaden set a pretrial conference for Sept. 19 and told the parties to conduct a "good faith attempt to settle this matter and avoid trial" (Cozy Comfort Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00173).
The Court of International Trade in a confidential June 18 decision sustained parts and remanded parts of the Commerce Department's second review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. The court gave the parties until June 25 to review the confidential information in the decision (YC Rubber Co. (North America) v. U.S., CIT # 19-00069).