The Court of International Trade in a June 24 opinion denied plaintiff Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps' move to amend its complaint in an Enforce and Protect Act evasion case. The company sought to "amend its complaint to explicitly contest CBP’s denial of its protests with respect to the xanthan gum entries subject to the EAPA" decision. Judge Gary Katzmann rejected the motion as "untimely and futile." The judge said the delay in amending the complaint was undue given how long it took the plaintiff to propose the change and its lack of attempts to make the change until deep into litigation. Katzmann also said the plaintiff failed to identify the specific protests it's contesting.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The International Trade Commission correctly found domestic industry was injured by imported mattresses in a set of antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, the commission said in a June 13 brief filed at the Court of International Trade. Despite arguments that the ITC failed to account for differences between mattresses-in-a-box and flat-pack mattresses, the commission said that it reasonably found the market segments interchangeable in AD/CVD investigations on mattresses from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam (CVB, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00288).
The Commerce Department improperly deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from antidumping respondent Nippon Steel's U.S. price in an antidumping review, non-selected company Tokyo Steel Manufacturing said in a June 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Further, the agency erred by increasing the total cost of manufacturing to account for Nippon Steel's purchases of iron ore from its affiliated suppliers, the brief said (Tokyo Steel Manufacturing v. U.S., CIT #22-00180).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has 32 extra days, until Aug. 1, to file its lists 3 and 4A tariff remand results in the Section 301 litigation, a three-judge panel at the Court of International Trade said in a June 22 order. DOJ, on USTR’s behalf, asked for a 60-day extension to Aug. 30 to fix its Administrative Procedure Act violations, citing the volume of work required to meet the remand order, plus the agency’s limited staff resources and the additional projects compounding its workload (see 2206210042).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department has failed to address the flaws found in the use of the Cohen's d test when using its differential pricing analysis (DPA) to detect "masked" dumping, exporter SeAH Steel Corp. argued in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to the U.S.'s argument that SeAH has failed to point to any statistical texts that explicitly address Commerce's claim that it can properly use the test, the exporter said that the burden is on the agency to find supportive texts and not merely rely on the silence of statistical authorities (Stupp Corp. v. United States, CIT #15-00334).
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The Court of International Trade in a June 17 opinion denied exporter Shanghai Tainai Bearing's and importer C&U Americas' bid for an injunction against cash deposits at the antidumping duty rate decided in the 2019-20 review of the AD order on tapered roller bearings from China. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the plaintiffs failed to establish a likelihood to succeed on the merits or suffer irreparable harm and that the balance of equities and public interest favored the U.S. government.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative can’t demonstrate good cause for a Section 301 remand deadline extension “that would leave uncured its established legal violation for another two months to the continuing detriment of American businesses and consumers,” Akin Gump lawyers for Section 301 litigation test plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products said in an opposition brief June 21 at the Court of International Trade in docket 1:21-cv-00052.