Mediation at the Court of International Trade in Dominican exporter Kingtom Aluminio's challenge to CBP's finding that the company makes aluminum extrusions using forced labor didn't result in a settlement. Judge Leo Gordon submitted a report of mediation on March 28 to the trade court noting the failed outcome of the mediation bid (Kingtom Aluminio v. United States, CIT # 24-00264).
Importer Southern Motion told the Court of International Trade that its electric DC motors were made in Vietnam and thus should have received a country of origin determination of Vietnam and not China. Filing a complaint at the trade court on March 31, Southern Motion said its products were improperly assessed Section 301 duties as a result of the COO decision (Southern Motion v. United States, CIT # 25-00033).
The International Trade Commission and court-appointed amicus Andrew Dhuey scrapped over whether Dhuey should be given access to the business proprietary information in an appeal on the Court of International Trade's rejection of a request to redact information released in a court decision (In Re United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1566).
The Commerce Department "unreasonably" used adverse facts available against exporter Tanghenam Electric Wire & Cable Co. in the anticircumvention inquiry on aluminum wire cable from China, barring the company from taking part in the certification process, Tanghenam argued in a March 28 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Tanghenam Electric Wire & Cable Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00049).
The Court of International Trade upheld parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's 2017 review of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China.
Antidumping duty petitioner Catfish Farmers of America dropped two cases at the Court of International Trade concerning the surrogate information used in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 reviews of the AD order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The petitioner said that in light of the trade court's recent decision sustaining the Commerce Department's choice of India as a surrogate over Indonesia in a previous review of the same AD order (see 2503100059), it's dismissing its cases on the later two reviews. The petitioner said it's dropping the cases to conserve resources "while continuing to pursue issues relevant to surrogate country and value selection in ongoing and future administrative reviews" (Catfish Farmers of America v. United States, CIT #s 21-00380, 22-00125).
A petitioner March 27 supported a U.S. motion to dismiss exporter Pipe & Piling Supplies’ complaint (see 2503250054). It agreed that the pipe exporter hadn’t established the Court of International Trade has jurisdiction over it (Pipe & Piling Supplies v. United States, CIT # 24-00211).
The Commerce Department has let respondents "game the system" and avoid countervailing duty liability for an otherwise countervailable program "simply by requesting a 'verification' after the fact from a willing foreign government," petitioner Titan Tire Corp. argued in a March 28 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Titan Tire said this system "creates a loophole that threatens to eviscerate the regulation through significant potential gamesmanship" (Titan Tire Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00233).
The Commerce Department permissibly said that backboards are veneers for purposes of identifying a benefit provided to countervailing duty respondents regarding the provision of veneers for less than adequate remuneration, the Court of International Trade held on March 27. Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce "explained adequately that the plain language of the Order’s scope defines backboard as a type of veneer."
The Court of International Trade denied March 27 a German thermal paper exporter’s and its affiliate’s motion to dismiss the case brought against it seeking payment of nearly $200 million in outstanding duties. In doing so, CIT Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that the trade court has personal jurisdiction over exporter Koehler Oberkirch and its affiliate, Koehler Paper.