U.S. solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy launched a lawsuit at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 29 to contest the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from Southeast Asian found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these products from China (Auxin Solar v. U.S., CIT # 23-00274).

Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top 20 stories published in 2023. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference numbers.

Indian exporter Kumar Industries took to the Court of International Trade to contest the adverse facts available rate it received for purportedly failing to cooperate to the best of its ability in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on glycine from India. Filing a complaint on Jan. 1, Kumar said Commerce erred in using AFA due to the noncooperation of two entities which the agency said were related to Kumar (Kumar Industries v. United States, CIT # 23-00263).

The South Korean government's provision of port usage rights to exporter Hyundai Steel Co. is not a countervailable benefit since it is the repayment of a debt, Hyundai told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Dec. 29 opening brief. Because the port usage rights allowed Hyundai to "recoup its costs" from building the Incheon North Harbor port, the rights did not provide a "gift-like transfer of funds that provided an advantage or profit to Hyundai Steel," the brief said (Hyundai Steel Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1100).

Importer Trijicon's tritium lamps are "lamps" of Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9405 regardless of the "material" of which they are made and the light source they use, the U.S. said in a Dec. 28 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Trijicon v. U.S., CIT # 22-00040).

The Court of International Trade won't order the Commerce Department "to ignore information" antidumping duty respondent Navneet Education "voluntarily put on the record," the trade court ruled in Dec. 29 decision sustaining the 2019-20 AD review on notebook paper from India.