The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The U.S. conflated importer Prysmian Cables and Systems' claims that the Commerce Department improperly denied its requests for Section 232 steel tariff exclusions with its claim that Commerce failed to "perform certain mandatory and discrete actions in responding" to the requests, Prysmian argued in its response to the government's motion to partially dismiss the case (Prysmian Cables and Systems v. U.S., CIT # 24-00101).

The Court of International Trade on Dec. 4 granted importer Incase Design Corp.'s voluntarily dismissal of its suit on the classification of its iPad and iPhone cases. Incase brought the suit in 2016 to contest CBP's classification of the goods under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 3926.10.00, dutiable at 5.3%, and 3926.90.99, dutiable at 5.3%. The company said the goods should have been classified under subheading 4820.30.00, free of duty, or subheading 8473.30.51, free of duty (Incase Design Corp. v. United States, CIT # 16-00181).

Mexican tomato exporter NS Brands said Dec. 3 that the Commerce Department needed to consider the “prejudice to companies now in existence” that resulted from resuming an antidumping duty investigation from 1996 with the same respondents (Bioparques de Occidente v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00204).

Anti-forced labor group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to reject the government's request for a two-month delay in filing a reply brief in the group's suit seeking CBP to respond to a withhold release order petition to ban cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire. IRAdvocates claimed that every "major delay in CBP doing its statutory duty to ban the importation of cocoa harvested by child slaves condemns thousands of children to a continuation of the horrible condition they must endure" (International Rights Advocates v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-2316).

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The value of solar cell processing in Thailand was not “small,” plaintiff-intervenor and importer NextEra Energy Constructors said Dec. 2 (Canadian Solar International Limited v. U.S., CIT # 23-00222).

Importer Elysium said in remand comments Dec. 2 that the new report of an ex parte meeting the Commerce Department held with Elysium’s competitor, a domestic tile producer, while making a decision on an Elysium scope ruling is “adequate” and “satisfies the legal requirements” (Elysium Tiles v. United States, CIT # 23-00041).

The Commerce Department improperly used a period of review-wide allocation methodology for exporter Sahamitr Pressure Container's certification expenses, Sahamitr argued in its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The company said it followed Commerce's instructions throughout the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on steel propane cylinders from Thailand only for the agency to find that its methodology to be "distortive" (Sahamitr Pressure Container v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2043).

The International Trade Commission regulation requiring a party to file an entry of appearance in order to establish standing to sue a commission decision before the Court of International Trade is lawful and in line with the relevant statute, the U.S. said. Replying to importer Pay Less Here's bid to keep its case on the ITC's critical circumstances determination on mattresses from Burma alive, the government said Pay Less doesn't have standing since it failed to file an entry of appearance (Pay Less Here v. United States, CIT # 24-00152).