The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 8 opinion held that tradeable tax credits fall within the regulatory definition of a "price adjustment," meaning the Commerce Department properly deducted the credits from respondent LDC Argentina's export price. Judges Kimberly Moore, Richard Taranto and Todd Hughes also ruled that Commerce's use of an international market price for soybeans in its constructed value calculation for biodiesel does not count as a double remedy, even though the U.S. imposed countervailing duties on Argentine soybeans.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative often found itself weighing the possible harm to U.S. consumers from the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs against the need to give the duties enough teeth to curb China’s allegedly unfair trade practices, the agency said in its 90-page “remand determination,” filed Aug. 1 at the Court of International Trade (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT #21-00052). Submitting its bid to ease the court's concerns over modifications made to the third and fourth tariff waves, USTR provided its justifications for removing various goods from the tariff lists ranging from critical minerals to seafood products.
Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif recently won a seven-year legal battle over the ownership of two early 20th century Austrian paintings allegedly stolen by the Nazis. The case ended following a one-sentence order from the State of New York Court of Appeals in May rejecting a London-based art dealer's bid to have his appeal heard on the merits. A lower court ordered in 2018 that two Egon Schiele paintings, valued at a combined $3.4 million, were to be transferred to the heirs of an Austrian Jewish entertainer who collected the works, later dying in a Nazi concentration camp. Reif is one of those heirs, Law.com reported. The paintings were owned by Fritz Grunbaum, a famous cabaret performer in pre-World War II Vienna and the first cousin of Reif's paternal grandfather, a story in Princeton Alumni Weekly said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Government of Ontario won't participate in an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over the countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Canada. Ontario gave notice of its non-participation on July 27 in the case. In March, the Court of International Trade sustained all five of the Commerce Departments positions under contention in the investigation. The consolidated case includes challenges to the investigation from Marmen Energie, which was the mandatory respondent; the governments of Canada, Quebec and Ontario; and the Wind Tower Trade Coalition, though now the Government of Ontario has dropped out of the appeal. Though it is out of the appeal, the court refused to drop the government from the case's official caption (The Government of Quebec, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1807).
The U.S. identified an incorrect standard for intervention in opposing exporter SeAH Steel Corp.'s motion to intervene in an antidumping proceeding at the Court of International Trade, SeAH argued in a July 29 brief. The exporter argued that it clearly has a right to intervene in the action since a CIT rule says that a party can intervene if it is given an unconditional right to intervene by a federal statute. Given that a federal statute does just that since SeAH was a party to the underlying review in question, SeAH said it can intervene in the case (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00138).
The Commerce Department's decision to reject exporter GreenFirst Forest Production's request for a changed circumstances review in a countervailing duty review was "arbitrary and capricious," GreenFirst argued in a brief at the Court of International Trade. The agency based its decision on an inapplicable practice to the case and effectively barred GreenFirst from obtaining a successor-in-interest determination despite its acquisition of Rayonier A.M. Canada's (RYAM's) lumber mills, the brief said (GreenFirst Forest Products Inc. v. United States, CIT #22-00097).
The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 1 order granted a joint motion for stipulated judgment, granting refunds to importer Transpacific Steel for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid in error. The importer was originally granted three exclusions with the wrong Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading listed in them. After having its resubmitted exclusion requests denied, Transpacific took to the trade court to seek the exclusions and refunds for the Section 232 duties paid. It received just that following a settlement with the U.S. (Transpacific Steel v. United States, CIT #21-00362).
DOJ asked the Court of International Trade in an Aug. 1 motion on behalf of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for permission to correct the administrative record in the Section 301 litigation to include 136 pages of documents not previously submitted in the cases. Virtually all the documents previously were in the public domain, and they include mostly news releases and Federal Register notices announcing USTR actions connected with the imposition of the four rounds of Section 301 tariffs on Chinese imports dating to 2018.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: