Joshua Kurland, a 15-year trial attorney at DOJ, has joined Hogan Lovells as a partner in the international trade and investment practice, the firm announced. At DOJ, Kurland led the government's litigation efforts in many cases in the Commercial Litigation Branch, including over 250 international trade-related cases. From January 2024 to January 2025, he sered as a trial attorney detailed in DOJ's national security division, covering counterintelligence and export control matters.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 13 issued its mandate in the lead case on the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test in its process for detecting "masked" dumping. In the decision, the appellate court said Commerce can't use the test when the "underlying data is not normally distributed, equally variable, and equally and sufficiently numerous" (see 2504220030). The court said it's "unreasonable" to use the test when it's applied to data that doesn't satisfy basic statistical assumptions. As a result of the ruling, Commerce opened a public comment period to explore alternatives to using the test (Marmen v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1877).
The U.S. last week filed a supplemental brief regarding its motion to dismiss importer Houston Shutters' Section 1581(i) case at the Court of International Trade against the Commerce Department's failure to open a changed circumstances review of antidumping duty and countervailing duty determinations on wood moldings and millwork products from China." In the brief, the government discussed a 2010 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Trustees in Bankruptcy of North American Rubber Thread Co. v. U.S., which the U.S. says supports dismissal of the suit for lack of jurisdiction (Houston Shutters v. United States, CIT # 24-00193).
The Commerce Department erred in including importer GameChange Solar's off-grid solar charging modules in the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Chinese solar cells, the importer argued in a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade last week. GameChange argued that Commerce "unlawfully" said its goods don't fit under the orders' exclusions for consumer goods or off-grid crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels (GameChange Solar v. United States, CIT # 24-00174).
The Court of International Trade on June 16 denied importer Detroit Axle's request that the trade court reconsider its briefing schedule on its motion for a preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump's decision to eliminate the de minimis threshold for goods from China. As a result, the U.S. reply to the PI motion is due June 20 and the importer's reply is due on July 7 (Axle of Dearborn, d/b/a Detroit Axle v. Dep't of Commerce, CIT # 25-00091).
Plaintiffs in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariff suit currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit filed an additional brief in support of their bid to tie the briefing schedule to the briefing schedule of the IEEPA tariff suit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, D.C. Cir. # 25-5202).
The Commerce Department's regulations allowing it to set deadlines to file separate rate applications or certifications can't trump its statutory duty to examine the largest exporters by volume in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on steel racks from China, the Court of International Trade held on June 16. Judge Jenniver Choe-Groves said that under the facts of the review, the agency improperly declined to consider exporter Nanjing Dongsheng Shelf Manufacturing Co. as a mandatory respondent despite it being the largest exporter of subject goods to the U.S. due to its untimely separate rate application.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 12 issued mandates in two trade cases. In one, it said the Court of International Trade cannot order the reliquidation of finally liquidated entries except where a protest has been filed or a civil action has been filed challenging an antidumping duty or countervailing duty determination (see 2504210029). The court said the statute, 19 U.S.C. 1514, doesn't let the trade court order reliquidation based on equitable considerations. In the other case, the court affirmed the Commerce Department's decision to adjust wind tower exporter Dongkuk S&C Co.'s steel plate input costs based on price fluctuations unrelated to the plate's physical characteristics in the input's price over time (see 2504210022) (Target Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2274) (Dongkuk S&C Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1419).
The Court of International Trade on June 13 granted importer Canadian Solar (USA)'s bid to voluntarily dismiss its case claiming CBP illegally collected duties on bifacial solar panels after CIT struck down the first Donald Trump administration's revocation of a tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels. Canadian Solar originally brought the suit in 2022 to claim that CBP no longer can require the importers to pay the safeguard tariff on bifacial solar panels after CIT found the revocation to be illegal (see 2210070084). However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ultimately reversed the trade court's decision after Canadian Solar filed suit, allowing the U.S. to reverse the tariff exemption and put the tariff back in place (see 2408130019) (Canadian Solar (USA) v. United States, CIT # 22-00295).
Importer Monarch Metals told the Court of International Trade that its stainless steel wire imports are products of Japan and not China, meaning its goods were improperly subjected to Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs. In a complaint filed June 13, Monarch Metals said that under CBP's prior application of the substantial transformation test to steel wire, no substantial transformation occurs by drawing steel rod into steel wire (Monarch Metals v. United States, CIT # 24-00266).