The Commerce Department improperly used the financial statements of Indonesian company PT Suparma in the antidumping duty investigation on paper plates from Vietnam, respondent Go-Pak Vietnam argued in a May 17 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The respondent also challenged Commerce's decision to use a simple average of the average unit values from two different subheadings to value its paper input, despite evidence showing that the company's paper is classified under only one of the subheadings (Go-Pak Paper Products Vietnam Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00070).
The Court of International Trade on May 19 upheld CBP's final determination that importer Vanguard Trading Co. evaded the antidumping duty order on Chinese quartz countertops. Judge Timothy Reif issued a confidential decision in the case upholding the evasion determination. Among other things, Vanguard challenged the strict liability standard that CBP established for importers regarding evasion and its ability to decide when it must seek scope clarification from the Commerce Department during Enforce and Protect Act duty evasion investigations (Vanguard Trading Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00253).
The Court of International Trade upheld May 16 the Commerce Department’s affirmative circumvention finding for solar cells from Cambodia, saying again -- as it did in a concurrent case -- (see 2505160045) that Commerce’s reliance on one country-of-origin factor, level of research and development investment, was reasonable.
The Court of International Trade on May 19 sent back the Commerce Department's circumvention finding on solar cells from Vietnam just days after sustaining two circumvention findings on solar cells from Thailand and Cambodia. Judge M. Miller Baker said in the Vietnamese circumvention case that Commerce "arbitrarily treated its adverse facts available finding as the administrative equivalent of landing on 'Go to Jail.'"
Gibson Dunn brought a suit to the Court of International Trade on behalf of a small Michigan-based importer, Detroit Axle, to challenge President Donald Trump's revocation of the de minimis threshold for Chinese goods. The complaint, filed on May 16, argues that Trump exceeded his statutory authority in eliminating de minimis for goods from China and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (Axle of Dearborn, d/b/a Detroit Axle v. Dep't of Commerce, CIT # 25-00091).
The Court of International Trade on May 15 denied the government's bid to stay one of the major challenges to trade action taken under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act pending resolution of earlier-filed cases challenging the tariff action. Judges Jane Restani, Gary Katzmann and Timothy Reif, who now preside over all major cases challenging IEEPA tariffs at the trade court (see 2505150009), concurrently granted a motion from the plaintiffs, represented by the libertarian group Pacific Legal Foundation, to expedite consideration of the case (Princess Awesome v CBP, CIT # 25-00078).
The State of California and its governor, Gavin Newsom, filed an amici curiae brief on May 15 in a lawsuit brought by 12 U.S. states against all tariff action taken by President Donald Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In it, the state made a bevy of statutory arguments against the government's interpretation of IEEPA, all of which are included in the state's own lawsuit against the IEEPA tariffs (The State of Oregon v. Donald J. Trump, CIT # 25-00077).
The Commerce Department properly found that exporters Canadian Solar and Trina Solar circumvented the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Chinese solar cells by sending their products through Thailand, the Court of International Trade held on May 16. Judge M. Miller Baker sustained Commerce's decision to put special emphasis on the amount of research and development investment into the companies' Thai facilities to show that the companies' processes in the country were "minor or insignificant."
One hundred forty-eight members of the House of Representatives filed an amicus curiae brief May 16 saying the International Emergency Economic Powers Act wasn't intended to grant the president the power to levy tariffs (The State of Oregon v. Donald Trump, CIT # 25-00077).
The Court of International Trade on May 19 sent back the Commerce Department's finding that solar cells from Vietnam circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on solar cells from China. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Commerce "arbitrarily treated its adverse facts available finding" on one of the mandatory respondents "as the administrative equivalent of landing on 'Go to Jail'" for the unexamined companies. The agency still has to address every statutory circumvention factor and balance them, the judge said. However, Baker upheld the ability of Commerce to extend the AFA determination to the cooperating unexamined companies, since the agency did so on the basis that the uncooperating party accounted for a "significant volume of Vietnamese solar cells."