CBP unlawfully began an Enforce and Protect Act investigation into CEK Group since the allegation submitted by M&B Metal Products didn't support the start of the investigation, CEK Group argued in a Sept. 12 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. To start an EAPA action, there must be an allegation with specific information -- something CBP did not receive from M&B, the brief said. The plaintiff said the Royal Brush v. U.S. case at the trade court "has now constrained CBP" in EAPA cases from making decisions based on confidential information not made available to the parties via public summaries -- something CBP allegedly did in CEK Group's case (CEK Group v. U.S., CIT #22-00082).

CBP unlawfully changed exporter J.D. Irving's antidumping duty cash deposit rate on its 2020 entries months after the rate had been confirmed when no administrative review had been requested of the exporter, J.D. Irving argued in a Sept. 9 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Because the change came after assessment instructions had been issued for the 2020 review period, it improperly set a cash deposit that was not based on same dumping margin as its most recent assessment rate, the exporter said (J.D. Irving v. U.S., CIT #22-00256).

The Court of International Trade denied a motion by Midwest-CBK that asked the court to have two issues appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a Sept. 7 order from Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves. The order said that the issues at hand did not meet the requirements for an interlocutory appeal because they involved questions of fact, not purely law (Midwest-CBK, LLC v. United States, CIT Consol. #17-00154).

The Commerce Department in a pair of remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade stuck by its position to exclude importers Worldwide Door Components' and Columbia Aluminum Products' door thresholds from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. After the trade court remanded the case for a second time, finding that the previous remand results were not submitted in a form the trade court could sustain, Commerce offered a further explanation for its decision to find that the thresholds fit under the finished merchandise exclusion to the orders (Worldwide Door Components v. U.S., CIT #19-00012) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. U.S., CIT #19-00013).

The Commerce Department properly included Vandewater International's steel branch outlets under the scope of the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China, the Court of International Trade held in a Sept. 8 opinion. Judge Leo Gordon found that while the plaintiffs, led by Vandewater, showed that information on the record could back a finding that their outlets could be excluded from the scope of the order, he could not agree that Commerce acted unreasonably in reaching the opposing conclusion using each of the (k)(2) factors.

A group of domestic steel manufacturers doesn't have the right to intervene in a spate of challenges to denied requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a Sept. 8 opinion. Ruling against the Court of International Trade's opinion that the would-be intervenors did not establish standing, Judges Kimberly Moore and Todd Hughes ultimately found that the interveners nevertheless failed to identify a legally protectable interest to qualify as intervenors under the trade court's rules.

The Commerce Department properly stuck by its decision to issue questionnaires in lieu of on-site verification due to the COVID-19-related travel restrictions on remand at the Court of International, the agency argued in a Sept. 6 brief filed to the Court of International Trade. During the remand, Commerce took a new agency action by finding that the questionnaire responses constituted verification -- a move it says was not only legal but justified since the antidumping duty respondent, Shakti Forge Industries, gave an amount of information that typically exceeds that found in other investigations, and the information corroborated and verified information that Shakti previously submitted (Bonney Forge Corporation v. United States, CIT #20-03837).

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 6 opinion said that the Court of International Trade was right to dismiss a suit from two importers seeking to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction since a protest with CBP was not filed. The trade court held that it did not have jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since the court would have had jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) had the importers, ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings, filed protests with CBP. The Federal Circuit agreed, holding that the true nature of the suit contests CBP's assessment of the duties and not the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's exclusions, necessitating a protest.

The Court of International Trade should not grant importer Greenlight Organic's and Parambir Singh Aulakh's motion for a certification of an order for an interlocutory appeal in a customs fraud case since the court's decision did not emit a "controlling question of law" to be appealed, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 1 reply brief. The court's opinion denied a motion for judgment since facts were still in dispute, precluding the interlocutory appeal, the U.S. said (United States v. Parambir Singh "Sonny" Aulakh, CIT #17-00031).