Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 21 for a voluntary remand in a case involving a challenge to the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test in light of the CAFC's decision in Marmen v. U.S., invalidating the agency's approach to the test. The government asked that oral argument in the case, which is currently set for Dec. 1, be canceled (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1556).
Petitioner Wheatland Tube Company opposed Nov. 17 the Commerce Department’s redetermination on remand in an antidumping duty scope case on dual-stenciled pipe, saying that the “entire house of cards on which the Remand Order was built has now collapsed” since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Court of International Trade ruling on another suit (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company v. United States, CIT # 21-00049).
AD/CVD petitioner Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to speed up its appeal on the Commerce Department's decision to exclude seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources Corp. from the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China. The petitioner said the relief it's seeking is "modest," and that a sped-up briefing schedule is needed to "prevent competitive harms" to the "domestic refractory-brick industry" that should be subject to "significant AD/CVD duties" (Fedmet Resources v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 26-1160).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 19 dismissed Nebraska man Byungmin Chae's second case challenging the results of his April 2018 customs broker license exam. Chae previously litigated the results of the exam in an earlier case before the Court of International Trade and CAFC, ultimately coming just one correctly answered question shy of a passing grade. After the Supreme Court declined to take up his first case, Chae filed another lawsuit to challenge one question on the test. The Federal Circuit dismissed the second lawsuit, finding that Chae should have brought any additional claims against the question in his first case.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 held that the deadline for filing a complaint isn't a jurisdictional issue. As a result, Judge Richard Eaton said he had the power to vacate the dismissal of a case from various exporters in an antidumping duty case, which was issued due to the exporters' failure to timely file a complaint.
Petitioner Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's exclusion of seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China (see 2510090016). The trade court said the exclusion of the bricks comports with a 2014 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which led to the standard that the addition of any amount of alumina to a magnesia carbon brick excludes it from the orders. The case was filed by Fedmet to contest the scope ruling, which came after a referral in an AD/CVD evasion case, on 11 of Fedmet's brick types. After CIT initially remanded the case to address the CAFC ruling, Commerce said seven of Fedmet's brick types are excluded from the order, since they have a non-zero alumina content (Fedmet Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00117).
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Commerce Department erred in backing off its use of the Cohen's d test to identify targeted dumping in the middle of an antidumping duty review and introducing a new "two-percent threshold," review respondent Tubos de Acero de Mexico (TAMSA) argued in a Nov. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. TAMSA said that while Commerce said it was backing off the d test due to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejecting the agency's use of the test, the agency didn't have to make a change, since CAFC's decision wasn't "final and conclusive" (Tubos de Acero de Mexico v. United States, CIT # 25-00221).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held oral argument on Nov. 4 in a pair of cases on the International Trade Commission's treatment of business proprietary information in injury proceedings. Judges Timothy Dyk, Richard Taranto and Raymond Chen pressed Courtney McNamara, counsel for the ITC, on the commission's policy of treating questionnaire submissions as confidential; on the Court of International Trade's separate authority to publicize information deemed confidential by the ITC; and on whether notice should be provided to the commission prior to the trade court's exercise of that authority (In Re United States, Fed. Cir. #s 24-1566, 25-127).