The Court of International Trade on Sept. 3 sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in the 2020-21 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on steel plate from Italy, in a confidential decision. In a letter to the litigants, Judge Claire Kelly gave the parties until Sept. 9 to review the confidential information in the decision. The case was previously before Judge Stephen Vaden, who sent back the agency's use of a quarterly cost methodology to analyze exporter Officine Tecnosider's sales during the review (see 2409170068). On remand, Commerce again chose to calculate the respondent's costs quarterly, rather than annually (see 2501160082) (Officine Tecnosider SRL v. United States, CIT Consol. # 23-00001).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 2 heard oral argument in a case from importers, led by Sweet Harvest Foods, against the International Trade Commission's finding of critical circumstances for the importers' Vietnamese honey imports, which led to the retroactive imposition of antidumping duties on entries made in the 90-day window prior to the suspension of liquidation. Ron Kendler, counsel for the importers, argued that the ITC violated the logic of the critical circumstances statute, while ITC attorney Michael Haldenstein and Melissa Brower, counsel for petitioner American Honey Producers Association, said the commission's decision was entirely in bounds of the law (Sweet Harvest Foods v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1370).
The Judicial Council of the Federal Circuit on Aug. 29 again decided to suspend Judge Pauline Newman from hearing cases for one year due to the 98-year-old judge's continued "misconduct." Since a special committee of the court opened an investigation on Newman's fitness to continue serving on the bench, the judge has refused to cooperate and submit to "standard neuropsychological exams." As a result, the special committee recently recommended extending Newman's suspension for another year (see 2507290029). The Judicial Council found there to be "ample justification" for the committee's order that Newman submit to the exams and for the committee's recommendation to suspend Newman for another year.
An Estonian national was extradited to the U.S. on Aug. 28 to face charges of conspiracy to violate U.S. export controls by sourcing U.S.-made electronics for use by the Russian government and military, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. Andrey Shevlyakov faces 18 total counts related to the international procurement scheme.
DOJ launched a cross-agency "Trade Fraud Task Force" on Aug. 29 to "bring robust enforcement against importers and other parties who seek to defraud the United States," the agency announced. The task force will bring together attorneys from the agency's civil and criminal divisions, along with officials at CBP, to target tariff evasion and "smugglers who seek to import prohibited goods into the American economy."
The Court of International Trade last week stayed until Nov. 26 exporter Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xing) Industry's (Jiaxing Hoshine's) case against a withhold release order on silica-based products made by its parent company, Hoshine Silicon, or its subsidiaries. The parties in the case asked for the stay while Jiaxing Hoshine works its way through the administrative process (Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xing) Industry Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00048).
Surety company U.S. Specialty Insurance Company argued in an Aug. 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade that CBP failed to use transaction value to value importer Cheer Rise's garment entries. Instead, the agency arbitrarily decided to use the "fall back method" of appraisal, "rendering the appraisement unlawful," the complaint said (U.S. Specialty Insurance Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00188).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 29 sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand not to continue applying adverse facts available to a mandatory respondent in the 2018 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China (see 2508280047) (Evolutions Flooring v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00591).
The Court of International Trade held that Section 1318(a) of the Trade Act of 1930, which lets the president grant duty-free treatment to certain goods "for use in emergency relief work," doesn't cover solar cells and modules. As a result, Judge Timothy Reif vacated the Commerce Department's duty "pause" on collection of antidumping duties and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam that were set to be collected from the four countries due to an anti-circumvention proceeding.
A New York man was sentenced Aug. 27 to six months in prison for "smuggling Egyptian antiquities" into the U.S., the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. The defendant, Ashraf Omar Eldarir, pleaded guilty earlier this year to four counts of smuggling goods through John F. Kennedy International Airport.