The Department of Justice opposed the bid by plaintiffs in an antidumping duty challenge for a separate briefing schedule apart from a briefing on a voluntary remand requested by the defense, in an Oct. 12 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The plaintiffs, led by Pirelli Tyre Co., feel as though the voluntary remand will not touch on the issues they raised by bringing their case to CIT, so they want a separate briefing schedule on their case. DOJ argues that this is "both inefficient and likely to lead to confusion of the issues in this case" (Pirelli Tyre Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00115).
Jacob Kopnick
Jacob Kopnick, Associate Editor, is a reporter for Trade Law Daily and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and International Trade Today. He joined the Warren Communications News team in early 2021 covering a wide range of topics including trade-related court cases and export issues in Europe and Asia. Jacob's background is in trade policy, having spent time with both CSIS and USTR researching international trade and its complexities. Jacob is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Public Policy.
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's application of adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. After previously remanding Commerce's application of AFA for lack of substantial evidence, Judge Miller Baker sustained Commerce's remand results after Commerce switched out the grounds on which it based its AFA finding.
The Commerce Department is sticking by its preferred methodology for determining surrogate financial ratios in an antidumping duty case following a remand from the Court of International Trade, the department said in Oct. 12 remand results submitted to the court. After CIT remanded the case to Commerce for its failure to address the concerns of the mandatory respondent, the agency returned with a more thorough backing of its surrogate financial ratio decision that it believes adequately addresses the respondent's concerns (The Ancientree Cabinet Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT # 20-00114).
Counsel for LG Electronics did not prove that the International Trade Commission's decision to deny attorney access to confidential information in a safeguard proceeding constitutes a final agency action, the U.S. argued in an Oct. 8 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Even if there existed a "speculative future basis for jurisdiction under prior case law," the LGE lawyers would have to show that the ITC secretary's actions resulted in ineffective or inadequate representation that resulted in an adverse determination, the brief said (LG Electronics USA, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT 21-00520).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade has jurisdiction to hear a case over CBP's failure to issue full Section 301 refunds, importer FD Sales Company argued in an Oct. 8 reply brief. Although CBP "approved" the importer's protest covering 60 entries seeking the refunds, FD Sales argued that the protest was effectively denied when CBP failed to fully grant the refunds, thus giving CIT jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) (FD Sales Company, LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00224).
The International Trade Commission properly found that imports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sheet from Oman injured the U.S. domestic industry, the Court of International Trade said in a Sept. 30 opinion made public Oct. 8. Addressing multiple challenges from the sole Omani exporter of PET sheet, OCTAL Inc., Judge Timothy Reif held that the ITC made all of its determinations in line with the governing statutes and with substantial evidence.
Judge Timothy Reif issued lengthy remand instructions Oct. 12 to the Commerce Department over its application of adverse facts available over China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in a countervailing duty review, citing the scene in the movie Philadelphia in which Denzel Washington's character asks Tom Hanks' character to explain something to him as he would to a two-year old.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska granted two Alaska shipping companies' renewed bid for an injunction against CBP penalties for seafood shipments found in violation of the Jones Act, in an Oct. 10 order. After previously ruling against the companies since they hadn't fulfilled a particular part of an exception to the Jones Act, thereby failing to show a likelihood to succeed in their case, Judge Sharon Gleason ruled they now met this condition (Kloosterboer International Forwarding LLC, et al. v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198).
The Court of International Trade entered partial judgment in a case over the antidumping duty investigation into Chinese quartz surface product in an Oct. 8 order. Having issued a partial decision in September, Judge Leo Gordon said that the remaining issue under litigation is separate from the already-ruled aspects of the case. In September, Gordon upheld the Commerce Department's decision to pick Mexico over Malaysia as a surrogate country for the purposes of calculating normal value in the AD case (see 2109270059). The remaining issue, brought by M S International, concerns whether Commerce had the requisite industry support to initiate the investigation -- an issue for which the court just sided with Commerce in a separate antidumping case (see 2110080035).