The Commerce Department on Jan. 24 dropped exporter Hyundai Steel Co.'s countervailing duty rate to a de minimis mark on remand in a suit contesting the rate applicable to Hyundai's usage rights for the North Incheon Harbor in South Korea. The agency said at the Court of International Trade that it considered the exporter's "construction costs in the benefit calculation," though it disagreed that the construction costs should be considered at all (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00304).

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

The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 denied Nebraska resident Byungmin Chae's petition for a rehearing of his petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of a question on his 2018 customs broker license exam. The decision marks the end of his legal remedies -- a process that saw Chae, mostly representing himself, take the case through multiple rounds of appeal at CBP, the Court of International Trade, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court (Byungmin Chae v. Janet Yellen, U.S. Sup. Ct. # 23-200).

Importer Hanon Systems Alabama dismissed at the Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 its lawsuit challenging the Commerce Department's finding that it's circumventing the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum foil from China by way of South Korea and Thailand (Hanon Systems Alabama Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00269).

A South Korean aluminum foil importer filed suit at the Court of International Trade against an anti-circumvention inquiry that found multiple importers attempted to avoid antidumping duties on Chinese aluminum foil using intermediaries in South Korea (Hanon Systems Alabama v. U.S., CIT # 23-00269).

The Commerce Department is barred by law from beginning any new antidumping duty investigations less than two years after it completed an AD investigation on the same product, an importer argued Jan. 22 in the Court of International Trade (Wabtec Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00160).

Past evidence of antidumping and countervailing duty evasion doesn't mean an exporter must still be transshipping goods, the U.S. said Jan. 22 in response to an AD/CVD petitioner’s motion for summary judgment in a case challenging the Commerce Department’s determination that wooden cabinet importers were not attempting to evade AD/CVD orders on products from China (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. U.S., CIT # 23-00140).

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 22 issued its mandate in a pair of cases seeking to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions. In the suits, the appellate court sustained the dismissal of the cases for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that a protest must have been filed with CBP to properly effectuate relief. The Court of International Trade initially said jurisdiction was not to be had under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since the court would have had jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) had a protest been filed (see 2209060035). The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the true nature of the suits contests CBP's assessment of the duties and not the U.S. Trade Representative's decision to grant an exclusion, even though the exclusions were granted after the deadline for filing a protest had lapsed (ARP Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2176) (The Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2177).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 19 invited the U.S. to respond to a petition from solar panel exporters, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association, to reconsider the case on President Donald Trump's decision to revoke a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels. The court asked for a response by Feb. 2 (Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).