Jacob Kopnick

Exporter Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co. failed to obtain the consent of the U.S. before it filed its motion for a statutory injunction against the liquidation of its light-truck spare tire models in an antidumping duty challenge, the Department of Justice argued in an Oct. 13 brief at the Court of International Trade. Rather, counsel for Cheng Shin completely misrepresented DOJ's position, declaring that it had the government's consent for the injunction, when it didn't, DOJ said. Opposing the scope of the injunction, which the court has already granted, DOJ also took issue with the fact that Cheng Shin applied for an "open-ended injunction" (Cheng Shin Rubber Ind. Co. Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #21-00398).

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 22 backed the Commerce Department's decision to pick Malaysia as the primary surrogate country in an antidumping duty review, despite using a Romanian company's financial statements to determine the surrogate financial ratios is backed by substantial evidence. Sustaining Commerce's remand results in the AD review, Chief Judge Mark Barnett also upheld the agency's surrogate value selection for bituminous coal, an input of the subject merchandise of the review, activated carbon, and Commerce's financial ratio calculations.

The European Union General Court dismissed a case brought by Russian steel company Novolipetsk Steel, holding in an Oct. 20 order that antidumping duties don't discriminate against goods that are subject to existing safeguard measures. Novolipetsk challenged the commission's antidumping duties on hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy or other alloy steel and cold-rolled flat steel products from Russia. The commission had also established safeguard measures that applied tariff quotas for 26 categories of steel products, including the HRF and CRF goods.

The Justice Department has accused Ericsson of violating its deferred prosecution agreement relating to a 2019 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, the Swedish telecommunications company said in an Oct. 21 news release. By "failing to provide certain documents and factual information," Ericsson violated the agreement, but it will have a chance to respond in writing to the nature of the breach, explaining any actions the company can take to remedy the situation, DOJ told Ericsson.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Labor Department properly considered all of the evidence when it continued to find that a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees are not entitled to trade adjustment assistance for outsourced jobs, the department said in an Oct. 20 reply brief filed at the Court of International Trade. Responding to accusations from the workers, Labor said what plaintiffs failed to do was point to any evidence that Labor failed to consider, the brief said (Communications Workers of America Local 4123, on behalf of Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc. v. United States Secretary of Labor, CIT #20-00075).

The Court of International Trade remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's final determination in the antidumping investigation into utility scale wind towers from Canada in an Oct. 22 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves sent back Commerce's decision to reject respondent Marmen's additional cost reconciliation information and use of the average-to-transaction methodology to discover masked dumping, while upholding the agency's weight-average of Marmen's plate costs, use of invoice dates as the date of sale, use of Marmen's reported sales of tower sections rather than complete towers, and decision not to apply facts otherwise available.

CBP on Oct. 18 asked the Alaska U.S. District Court to reconsider a temporary restraining order it issued on Jones Act penalties levied against Alaskan shipping companies, arguing that the TRO is "overbroad." Seeking to preserve its right to issue Jones Act penalties on shipments for which the five-year statute of limitations may run out, CBP wants to change the injunction from applying to any penalty notices relating to the Jones Act violation in question to just applying to penalty notices issued on or after Sept. 30 (Kloosterboer International Forwarding LLC, et al. v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department's decision not to grant a constructed export price offset in an antidumping duty investigation based on the claim that mandatory respondent Interpipe Ukraine didn't separately report the selling functions and the level at which it performed those functions from each home market channel of distribution runs contrary to the law, Interpipe argued in an Oct. 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Interpipe also pushed back against Commerce's decision to deduct Section 232 duties from its U.S. price when calculating its dumping margin (Interpipe Ukraine LLC, et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00530).