The Commerce Department properly found that it had enough industry support to initiate antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products (QSP) from India, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 7 decision. Issuing a partial opinion in the case solely to address the concerns of M S International (MSI), Judge Leo Gordon said that Commerce legally interpreted "producers" of QSPs as excluding QSP fabricators.

A customs broker exam taker who is appealing his failing score is asking the Court of International Trade to overturn CBP’s denial of credit for seven questions from the April 2018 test. In a brief filed Oct. 1, Byungmin Chae says CBP erroneously graded his customs broker exam, denying him a broker license on its mistaken finding that he did not score 75 percent or higher.

The Court of International Trade does in fact have jurisdiction to hear a case over denied attorney access to confidential information in a safeguard proceeding at the International Trade Commission, counsel for LG Electronics told the court in an Oct. 6 reply brief. The denial of access to the proceeding constitutes a final agency action, making the denial eligible for judicial review, the brief said (LG Electronics USA, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT 21-00520).

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

Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC) challenges certain elements of the Commerce Department's third administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain hot-rolled steel flat products from Japan covering entries in 2018-19, in an Oct. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade.

Lyke Industrial Tool's cupwheels are not within the scope of the antidumping duty order on diamond sawblades from China, the Court of International Trade held in an Oct. 7 order. After conducting an analysis of the "(k)(2)" factors following an initial remand from CIT, which included comparing the physical characteristics, end uses, consumer expectations and methods of advertising for cupwheels and diamond sawblades, the Commerce Department held that the cupwheels could not be held in the scope of the AD order.

The Commerce Department was wrong to include dual-stenciled pipe imported as line pipe within the scope of the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 6 order, remanding the scope ruling to Commerce for further consideration. Seeing as there were no Thai manufacturers who even made line pipe at the time of the AD order, the ITC therefore never made an injury determination on line pipe from Thailand. This led Judge Stephen Vaden to hold that line pipes are excluded from the scope of the order.

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

A host of mattress companies in two Court of International Trade cases cited an Oct. 4 order from Judge Timothy Stanceu in their bid for an open-ended preliminary injunction against the antidumping duty order on mattresses from Vietnam. The order said that the open-ended injunction was warranted since the plaintiff in that case showed a likelihood of irreparable harm if the injunction was not issued in that way (see 2108230059). The U.S. had opposed the open-ended injunction, instead pushing for the injunction to merely run until the end of the first administrative review. The U.S. echoed this opposition in the two cases over the AD mattress order, arguing that if needed the injunction could be extended beyond the end of the first administrative review.

In a complaint at the Court of International Trade, importer Kehoe Component Sales said its heating blanket controllers should be classified under subheading 9032.89.60, dutiable at 1.7%. CBP liquidated the entries under subheading 8537.10.9070, dutiable at 2.7%.