The Court of International Trade on Aug. 26 vacated the National Marine Fisheries Service's comparability findings on New Zealand's West Coast North Island multispecies set-net and trawl fisheries, though the court declined to compel NMFS to issue an import ban on fish and fish products from these fisheries under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).

Cigarette manufacturer Scottsdale Tobacco said in an Aug. 13 motion for judgment that it was wrongly denied drawback for its Canada-origin paper-wrapped cigarettes entered in 2018 and 2019 (Scottsdale Tobacco v. United States, CIT # 24-00022).

Exporters brought a number complaints Aug. 22 and Aug. 25 challenging the Commerce Department’s decision to countervail transnational subsidies in its investigations on solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (Boviet Solar Technology v. United States, CIT #s 25-00160 and 25-00162; JA Solar Vietnam Co. v. United States, CIT #s 25-00157 and 25-00158; Trina Solar Science & Technology (Thailand) v. United States, CIT # 25-00166 and 25-00169; Canadian Solar International v. United States, CIT #s 25-00159 and 25-00161; Jinko Solar (Vietnam) Industries Company v. United States, CIT #s 25-00171 and 25-00172).

The Court of International Trade sustained Aug. 22 the Commerce Department’s finding that a Vietnamese currency undervaluation program was specific to the traded goods sector, and thus countervailable in a countervailing duty investigation on passenger vehicle and light truck tires. The court said Commerce’s analysis was properly based on predominant use, distinguishing it from a disproportionality analysis.

In a confidential opinion released Aug. 22, Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif vacated the Commerce Department’s pause on antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia -- in place until June 6, 2024 -- after a finding that the countries' exporters were circumventing an antidumping duty on solar cells from China (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).

In a reply brief, California said Aug. 18 that the U.S. had conceded the state’s challenge to President Donald Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs “arises out of” the IEEPA. The government’s following argument, that it also arises from Trump’s recent executive orders modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule to implement the tariffs, fails because those orders weren’t authorized by a “law of the United States,” it said (State of California v. Donald J. Trump, 9th Cir. # 25-3493).

The Court of International Trade dismissed Aug. 21 a case brought by Canadian lumber exporter J.D. Irving in an attempt to secure a lower antidumping duty cash deposit rate for some of its entries.

Over opposition from the government, which said that the Court of International Trade didn't have the power to extend complaint deadlines, the trade court let honey exporters led by Ban Me Thout Honeybee file their complaint out of time in an order Aug. 15. The court said it would follow up its order with its reasoning in a later filing.

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The Court of International Trade affirmed Aug. 11 the Commerce Department’s decision to, in an antidumping duty administrative review, reject Chinese solar cell exporter Yingli China’s separate rate application even though its U.S. sales were conducted through an affiliate, Yingli Green Energy Americas, with separate ownership.