Solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy responded to the U.S. motion to dismiss their suit challenging the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Southeast Asian countries found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these goods from China (see 2401230040) (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).

Anti-forced labor nonprofit International Rights Advocates said that it has standing to sue CBP over its inaction in responding to a petition alleging that cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire is made with forced child labor. Responding to the government's motion to dismiss (see 2312180058), International Rights Advocates said it suffered a concrete injury by being forced to divert "substantial resources" to "gather and submit additional and updated evidence of forced labor" following CBP's inaction on the petition (International Trade Advocates v. U.S., CIT # 23-00165).

The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 21 that solar companies and industry groups led by the Solar Energy Industries Association failed to show that an en banc rehearing was needed for a decision upholding President Donald Trump's revocation of a tariff exclusion for bifacial solar panels (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 22 again remanded the Commerce Department's use of total adverse facts available against exporter Meihua and its affiliate in an antidumping duty review on xanthan gum from China. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said Meihua properly submitted information on the duties it paid, and its submission of its data 56 days before the antidumping review's preliminary results wasn't "untimely."

A World Trade Organization dispute panel on Feb. 20 found a U.S. attempt to revisit part of its countervailing duty laws as they pertain to subsidies on agricultural products violated the nation's WTO commitments. The panel said the U.S. failed to implement the findings of a previous dispute panel ruling, which said these same laws cut against the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in relation to a subsidy finding on ripe olives from Spain.

Exporter Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xing) Industry Co. filed a lawsuit at the Court of International Trade to contest a withhold release order on the company and CBP's rejection of the exporter's petition to be removed from the WRO. The company, which goes by Jiaxing Hoshine, said the WRO has done "significant and irreparable damage" to its business and reputation and that CBP has skirted the law by failing to disclose the evidence it used in issuing the WRO (Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xing) Industry Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00048).

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Importer Trijicon's tritium-powered gun sights are "lamps" and not "apparatus," slotting them under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9405, the Court of International Trade ruled on Feb. 16. Judge Mark Barnett said the gun sights do not meet definition of "apparatus" put forward by either Trijicon or the government, who respectively defined the term as a set of materials or equipment and a complex device. The court instead found that the products "are readily classified as lamps," which are defined as "any of various devices for producing light."

The Court of International Trade on Feb. 20 rejected a Commerce Department scope ruling finding R210-S engines made by Chonging Rato Technology Co. fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc and parts thereof from China.

Georgia woman Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois filed suit at the Court of International Trade Feb. 16 to contest six questions on the October 2021 customs broker license exam. In her complaint, Stoute-Francois said that after appealing the test results to the Treasury Department, she was left just short of the 75% grade needed to pass the test, failing at 73.75% (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).