Following oral argument over a question of whether a questionnaire submitted in lieu of verification constitutes verification in an antidumping matter, both the plaintiffs, led by Ellwod City Forge Co., and the defendant-intervenors, led by Metalcam, submitted follow-up briefs. Metalcam told the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department acted within its discretion to issue the questionnaire instead of on-site verification. Meanwhile, Ellwood responded to the oral argument by arguing that it exhausted administrative remedies on this question, but that even if it did not, this should not bar consideration of the legal claims (Ellwood City Forge Company v. United States, CIT #21-00073).
A recent Court of International Trade opinion left prior court precedent on the question of what constitutes a substantial transformation "dead, or on life support," an analysis from Neville Peterson said. The result is that importers who have been told by CBP that the country of origin of their goods is the country of origin of the goods' major inputs or essential components will likely seek reconsideration of those rulings, seeking refunds on Section 301 China tariffs in particular, the firm said.
A host of law firms have said that they are dropping Russian clients and reviewing work related to Russia to comply with the spate of global sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, per reports from Reuters and Law.com. Firms such as White & Case, Baker McKenzie, and Morgan Lewis & Bockius -- all with offices in Russia -- are working to gauge sanctions exposure due to their dealings with Russian clients and flush the exposure from their business.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) and Riverside Plywood, two plaintiffs in a countervailing duty case, submitted a notice of supplemental authority saying the Commerce Department has shown it can verify non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program (EBCP) even without information from the Chinese government. Because Commerce has done so in a different CVD investigation following the submission of standard supplemental questionnaire responses, verification is possible in the current case, the plaintiffs told the Court of International Trade (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. U.S., CIT #20-03885).
The Commerce Department's decision to deny a scope ruling request is not a judicially reviewable action, the Department of Justice said in its motion to dismiss a case brought by three companies at the Court of International Trade. CIT jurisdiction will instead be established at the end of a changed circumstances review requested by the plaintiffs, DOJ said (Zhejiang Yuhua Timber Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00502).
CBP ignored the Court of International Trade's ruling that it needs some finding of culpability before determining that importer Diamond Tools Technology evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on diamond sawblades from China, DTT said in a Feb. 28 brief. Instead, CBP just ignored the court's definitions of the terms "false" and "omission" and illogically claimed that the customs penalty law's establishment of specific degrees of culpability negates the Enforce and Protect Act's culpability requirement, DTT argued (Diamond Tools Technology v. United States, CIT #20-00060).
A Feb. 24 Court of International Trade decision could result in "inching toward a saner and more legally sound approach to origin determinations" involving the substantial transformation test, customs lawyer Larry Friedman of Barnes Richardson said in a blog post Feb. 24. The language in the decision is "generally favorable for a simplified and more reasonable approach to origin," after years of focus on pre-determined end use of assembled components following the trade court's unappealed 2016 decision in Energizer.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A group of U.S. welded pipe manufacturers is appealing a Court of International Trade ruling that the Commerce Department can't make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test (see 2112280030). American Cast Iron Pipe, Berg Steel Pipe, Berg Spiral Pipe, Dura-Bond Industries and Stupp along with Greens Bayou Pipe Mill, JSW Steel (USA), Skyline Steel, Trinity Products and Welspun Tubular joined the Feb. 25 notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The CIT decision was one in a long line of court decisions finding that the statute doesn't permit a PMS adjustment in this way (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #19-00056). This position was recently upheld by the Federal Circuit in Hyundai Steel v. United States and is currently being petitioned for a full court rehearing by the AD petitioner of the relevant order Welspun.