An importer’s lawsuit against its customs broker for the broker’s alleged failure to stay on top of issues related to some FDA-regulated entries will continue, after a judge of the Western Washington U.S. District Court declined to halt the discovery process in the case. The broker says its terms and conditions cut its liability to a mere $200, but the judge said the importer’s arguments that those liability limits are invalid could be bolstered by more evidence.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's application of adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. After previously remanding Commerce's application of AFA for lack of substantial evidence, Judge Miller Baker sustained Commerce's remand results after Commerce switched out the grounds on which it based its AFA finding.

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

The Court of International Trade has jurisdiction to hear a case over CBP's failure to issue full Section 301 refunds, importer FD Sales Company argued in an Oct. 8 reply brief. Although CBP "approved" the importer's protest covering 60 entries seeking the refunds, FD Sales argued that the protest was effectively denied when CBP failed to fully grant the refunds, thus giving CIT jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) (FD Sales Company, LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00224).

The International Trade Commission properly found that imports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sheet from Oman injured the U.S. domestic industry, the Court of International Trade said in a Sept. 30 opinion made public Oct. 8. Addressing multiple challenges from the sole Omani exporter of PET sheet, OCTAL Inc., Judge Timothy Reif held that the ITC made all of its determinations in line with the governing statutes and with substantial evidence.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate Oct. 8 in a case involving the Commerce Department's use of the "Cohen's d test" to discover targeted or masked dumping. The mandate led the Court of International Trade to remand the case to Commerce to bring its final results in an antidumping investigation into welded line pipe from South Korea in line with the Federal Circuit's opinion. The appellate court held that Commerce must further explain its use of this statistical test when using its differential pricing analysis since Commerce may not be adhering to certain assumptions required to perform the Cohen's d test (see 2107150032). A proposed briefing schedule decided by all parties is due by Oct. 28 (Stupp Corporation et al. v. U.S., et al., CAFC # 2020-1857).

The Court of International Trade entered partial judgment in a case over the antidumping duty investigation into Chinese quartz surface product in an Oct. 8 order. Having issued a partial decision in September, Judge Leo Gordon said that the remaining issue under litigation is separate from the already-ruled aspects of the case. In September, Gordon upheld the Commerce Department's decision to pick Mexico over Malaysia as a surrogate country for the purposes of calculating normal value in the AD case (see 2109270059). The remaining issue, brought by M S International, concerns whether Commerce had the requisite industry support to initiate the investigation -- an issue for which the court just sided with Commerce in a separate antidumping case (see 2110080035).

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).