Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps' Court of International Trade case challenging CBP's antidumping and countervailing duty evasion finding should continue, even though the relevant entries have liquidated, because the lawsuit was properly filed under Section 1581(c), the company said in a Sept. 1 reply brief. Responding to a partial motion to dismiss from the Department of Justice, Dr. Bronner's said that since the Enforce and Protect Act, under which the evasion finding was made, is codified under 19 USC 1517, the proper jurisdiction for its challenge of an EAPA investigation is Section 1581(c) (All One God Faith, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00164).

No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

Defendant-intervenor ABB Enterprise Software will appeal a Court of International Trade decision upholding a zero percent antidumping rate for respondents Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Hyosung Corporation. ABB filed its intent to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 7 notice at CIT. In the case, Chief Judge Mark Barnett only upheld the Commerce Department's remand after the agency dropped its adverse inference against Hyundai and Hyosung, as part of the fourth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from South Korea (see 2107120032). Commerce initially applied total adverse facts available to Hyundai, finding that the company understated its home market gross unit prices by failing to consistently report parts of its home market sales as foreign like product.

Furniture importer Aspects Furniture International has a protectable interest in an antidumping duty evasion case at the very least due to "goodwill, reputation, and freedom to take advantage of business opportunities" concerns, the importer said in an Aug. 30 filing in the Court of International Trade. Responding to the Department of Justice's arguments countering its initial motion for judgment, AFI also said that, contrary to the government's position, CBP's limited administrative avenues to submit written arguments during the investigation were insufficient from a constitutional perspective to reject AFI's due process violation claims (Aspects Furniture International, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-03824).

Two Alaskan shipping companies, Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management, filed for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order against CBP penalties for seafood shipments in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. CBP recently continued to issue the penalty notices for companies shipping Alaskan seafood from Alaska to the eastern U.S. via the Bayside, New Brunswick, Canada, port, alleging Jones Act violations. The two companies challenged these penalties in the district court, declaring that they have essentially shut down this critical shipping route that had been previously cleared by CBP as complying with the Jones Act.

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

The Commerce Department violated the law in its refusal to accept antidumping respondent OCTAL's new factual information attempting to refute the assumption of affiliation between it and one of its U.S. customers, OCTAL argued in a Sept. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Following a voluntary remand proceeding meant to give OCTAL a shot at commenting on the affiliation determination, OCTAL blasted the agency for not including its new facts in the case attempting to prove that it is not affiliated with the U.S. customer with which it has an exclusive supply agreement (OCTAL Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).

The Commerce Department switched its original determination and relied on the actual costs of prime and non-prime products as reported by an antidumping respondent in Sept. 2 remand results filed at the Court of International Trade. Following the second remand in the case, Commerce made the change after the court sustained the other seven issues under contention in the first remand (Husteel Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00112).

The Commerce Department was wrong to not remove a Section 232 steel tariff adjustment in an antidumping duty calculation in light of the Court of International Trade's opinion finding the tariff hike on Turkish steel was illegal, Turkish steel importer Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret said in a Sept. 2 brief. Following CIT's decision in Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, Commerce should not have deducted the cost of the duties from Borusan's U.S. price in an antidumping case, the exporter argued. Borusan also again argued that Section 232 duties should not be deducted from the U.S. price since, like Section 201 duties, they are remedial, temporary and would be double-counted if deducted (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00132).

A lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina over a shipping company's alleged gross negligence in handling a hemp shipment should be tossed for lack of jurisdiction, defendant Planet Nine Private Air said in a Sept. 1 brief. If the court decides not to dismiss the matter, it should be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, since that is where Planet Nine primarily does business and the signing of the contract in dispute was held there, the brief said (We CBD, LLC et al. v. Plante Nine Private Air, LLC, W.D.N.C. #21-00352).