The Commerce Department doesn't fail to act when it denies a Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion request, the Court of International Trade held. Instead, the denial is a "decision" and "not an action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed," Judge Stephen Vaden said, dismissing a host of claims from importer Prysmian Cables and Systems USA against Commerce's rejection of its exclusion requests.
The EU has requested consultations at the World Trade Organization as the first step in contesting Chinese practices pertaining to intellectual property rights, the European Commission announced on Jan. 19. The commission alleged that China has "empowered its courts to set binding worldwide royalty rates for EU standard essential patents, without the consent of the patent owner."
Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden earlier this month said he is working on two decisions to be issued simultaneously in a case on the International Trade Commission's affirmative injury determination on phosphate fertilizers. In a text-only order, the judge said one opinion will deal with the merits of the appeal, while the other will address the court's issue with the commission's treatment of confidential information (OCP v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00219).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in the expedited countervailing duty review on softwood lumber products from Canada, in a confidential decision. Judge Mark Barnett sent the review back for Commerce to "reconsider or further explain its subsidy calculations with respect to" the consolidated entity of D&G/Portbec. The court found for the government on the remaining issues (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00122).
Chinese manufacturer Camel Group Co. took to the Court of International Trade last week to contest its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, arguing that the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force "utterly disregarded, ignored and trampled" its due process rights in a "flawed and poorly executed process." The company said FLETF illicitly conducted the process in the shadows, refusing to offer it access to any of the evidence used against the company, and that the decision to deny its petition to be removed from the list wasn't backed by substantial evidence (Camel Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
Regulatory attorney Brett Shumate left his position as partner at Jones Day on Jan. 17, the firm said in a notice to the Court of International Trade. Shumate had appeared as counsel for various companies in the massive Section 301 litigation before the trade court. Shumate joined Jones Day as a partner in 2019 after serving as the deputy assistant attorney general for the federal programs branch in DOJ's civil division.
A Miami real estate broker pleaded guilty to scheming to violate U.S. sanctions by helping sanctioned Russian oligarchs Viktor Perevalov and Valeri Abramov rent, sell and transfer ownership of their South Florida condominiums, DOJ announced. The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined the broker, Roman Sinyavsky, and his firm, Family International Realty, over $1 million for the sanctions evasion (see 2501160051).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A group of importers, led by Tenaris Bay City Inc., will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's finding that it had sufficient U.S. industry support to launch the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on oil country tubular goods from Argentina, Mexico, South Korea and Russia. After previously remanding the issue, the trade court said the agency adequately addressed contrary evidence (see 2412110010). On remand, Commerce said it appropriately used industry source data and that finishing operations weren't double counted (Tenaris Bay City Inc. v. United States, CIT # 22-00343).