No new lawsuits have been filed recently at the Court of International Trade.
The U.S. and importer Cozy Comfort Co. each filed proposed findings of fact and law earlier this month after a weeklong trial before the Court of International Trade on whether to classify Cozy Comfort's product, The Comfy, as a blanket or a pullover (Cozy Comfort Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00173).
The Commerce Department decided not to countervail benefits received by countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir from Turkey's Banking and Insurance and Transaction Tax exemptions on remand at the Court of International Trade. The agency said that while there was not enough information to find that the exemptions were de facto specific, it faulted its lack of time on remand to gather sufficient information (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 23-00131).
Three international trade attorneys, Sarah Sprinkle, Jared Cynamon and Marisa Littlefield, joined Sandler Travis, the firm announced. Sprinkle joins the firm as a member and co-lead of the trade remedies practice after most recently working as senior counsel at Akin Gump. Cynamon joins as an associate after conducting trade remedies work at the Commerce Department. Littlefield joins as a customs attorney associate after graduating from the American University Washington College of Law.
The heads of the World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization penned a Memorandum of Understanding on Jan. 21 to boost cooperation on "customs-related matters," the WTO announced. The organizations agreed to identify opportunities to collaborate in "external fora" and on the "delivery of technical assistance and capacity building in areas of common interest, including the implementation of grants provided through the Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility." The two organizations also agreed to share information in "areas of common interests," including on the development of the Harmonized System tracker and tariff classification. The groups pledged to harmonize work on the transposition of the HS, including through sharing information on projects and activities to combat illegal trade.
The World Trade Organization's Committee on Market Access held its final meeting of a series of thematic sessions on supply chain resilience on Jan. 17, the WTO said. The session gave examples of multilateral and regional initiatives on supply chain resilience and how the WTO can support members via trade policy.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 sustained CBP's decision on remand to find that importer Zinus didn't evade the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The agency made the decision after incorporating a scope ruling from the Commerce Department finding that seven models of metal and wood platform beds imported by Zinus aren't covered by the AD order (see 2501130011) (Zinus v. United States, CIT # 23-00272).
Exporters PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia and PT Grantec Jaya Indonesia -- two companies collapsed into one for antidumping duty procedural purposes -- took to the Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 to contest the 2022-23 review of the AD order on mattresses from Indonesia. Ecos/Grantec challenged the Commerce Department's determination to adjust three expense fields to include "overpaid allowances," along with the agency's adjustments to the companies' total cost of manufacturing under the "transactions disregarded" provision of U.S. antidumping law (PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia v. United States, CIT # 24-00238).
The Commerce Department's exceeded its statutory authority when it revoked an antidumping duty order on the grounds that it never received a notice of intent to participate from an interested domestic party in a sunset review, petitioner Archroma U.S. argued. Filing a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Archroma said Commerce's authority to ensure the "integrity of its procedures" doesn't allow it to "adopt measures exceeding its statutory authority" (Archroma U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2159).