Plaintiffs Amsted Rail Co. (ARC) and ASF-K Mexico again took to the Court of International Trade, this time against the Commerce Department, in a bid to get the trade court to disqualify its former law firm from further participation in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on freight rail couplers and parts thereof from China and Mexico. ARC and ASF-K said that Commerce's refusal to disqualify Buchanan Ingersoll and timely rescind access to business proprietary information (BPI) violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the plaintiff's right to due process (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00316).

CBP announced that it has initiated and consolidated two Enforce and Protect Act investigations on whether Double L Group, LLC (Double L) and Manufacturing Network Inc. (MNI) evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on Chinese-origin steel grating, according to a notice dated Oct. 26. The investigations were launched on July 21, following allegations by Hog Slat that Double L and MNI misclassified imported steel grating as non-covered merchandise.

By deducting the value of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) -- tradeable credits issued by the EPA -- from antidumping duty respondent Wilmar Trading's export price, the Commerce Department "penalizes Wilmar for having to navigate different regulatory regimes for biodiesel in the United States and Indonesia," Wilmar argued in comments on Commerce's remand results at the Court of International Trade. The result is an arbitrarily inflated dumping margin derived from Commerce's approach, which is separate from Wilmar's "actual commercial experience," the brief said (Wilmar Trading Pte Ltd. v. United States, CIT Consol. #18-00121).

Unreliable lab reports by CBP call into question suspended cases, regardless of the outcome of a test case, New Image Global, Inc., argued in two separate Oct. 28 complaints to the Court of International Trade (New Image Global Inc. v. United States, CIT #14-00271 and 15-00316).

There is no basis for the Court of International Trade to reconsider its decision to uphold the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis (DPA) to root out "masked" dumping or its inclusion of respondent SeAH Steel Corp.'s inventory valuation losses in its general and administrative (G&A) expense calculation, the U.S. said. Replying to SeAH's motion for rehearing at CIT, the government argued that since Commerce has found on remand in the key Stupp Corp. v. U.S. case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit called into question the use of the Cohen's d test that the agency properly used the test, there are no grounds to contest CIT's move to uphold the DPA (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).

The "major questions doctrine" established in the Supreme Court decision West Virginia v. EPA does not apply to the question of whether a protest needed to be filed with CBP to retroactively apply Section 301 duty exclusions, the U.S. argued in an Oct. 28 brief opposing a motion for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Even if the major questions doctrine did apply, CBP acted in line with the clear authority granted by Congress in collecting Section 301 duties from plaintiff-appellants ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings, the brief said (ARP Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2176).

CBP's decision not to pay out interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, on collected antidumping and countervailing duties violates the plain language of the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000, groups of plaintiff-appellants argued in two opening briefs in two different cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. One brief, penned by appellants led by Hilex Poly Co. and American Drew, said that even if the law was ambiguous, CBP has failed to exercise any authority "in a way that deserves deference" (Hilex Poly Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-2106) (Adee Honey Farms v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-2105).

The Commerce Department abused its discretion by denying respondent Ajmal Steel Tubes & Pipes' late-filed submission in an antidumping duty review while giving itself a far greater delay, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 28 opinion. Ajmal claimed that COVID-19-related difficulties caused the less-than-two-hour delay. While Judge Jane Restani ruled that it could be considered reasonable for Commerce to have rejected the filing on these grounds, the judge said that the agency abused its discretion by ignoring its own actions, which caused a far more considerable delay in the proceeding.

A company's information shared with counsel jointly representing another firm is not treated as confidential and "cannot serve as a basis for a conflict claim," counsel for defendant-intervenor Coalition of Freight Coupler Producers argued in an Oct. 26 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Plaintiffs, led by Amsted Rail Co. (ARC) cannot claim that the coalition's counsel -- led by Daniel Pickard of Buchanan Ingersoll -- violated the D.C. Bar's rules of ethics, Pickard said (Amsted Rail Co. v. ITC, CIT #22-00307).

CBP cannot collect on a bond due 14 years ago by claiming a breach occurred only when CBP demanded payment through the agency's own error, Aegis Security Insurance Company said in an Oct. 21 response brief and request for dismissal at the Court of International Trade (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT #20-03628).