The Court of International Trade this week announced that amendments to four court rules will become effective Nov. 8. The court said it approved the changes earlier this month.
Court of International Trade activity
A syringe importer said Oct. 23 that, without an injunction on a new 100% tariff on needles from China, it must either “discontinue 95% of business or suffer non-recoupable damages.” In response, the U.S. said that it had enough money to absorb the duties -- for example, by cutting its CEO's pay (Retractable Technologies v. U.S., CIT # 24-00185).
If a reelected President Donald Trump uses the existing Section 301 tariffs program to hike tariffs on all Chinese goods by at least 60%, that's likely to survive a court challenge, said two law professors who spoke during a Washington International Trade Association webinar on the executive branch's ability to make deals and impose trade restrictions without congressional say-so.
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. on its tin mill product entries. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence and in line with agency practice.
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 24 said exporter The Ancientree Co. failed to timely raise its ministerial error allegation in an antidumping review on Chinese cabinets, finding that the company didn't file the allegation until after the final results even though the error was present in the preliminary findings. The company said its U.S. price should have been adjusted to account for an alleged subsidy it received from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program that was countervailed in the companion CVD proceeding. Judge Mark Barnett held that none of the exceptions to exhaustion applied.
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 25 sustained the International Trade Commission's decision on remand finding imports of Russian seamless pipe are non-negligible as part of the injury determination on the products. Judge M. Miller Baker said the commission adequately relied on data from two unnamed companies for determining the amount of in-scope imports from Germany and Mexico for purposes of the negligibility calculation. The judge added that exporter PAO TMK failed to argue before the ITC that it should have re-opened the record in handling the company's claims.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. and importer Katana Racing jointly moved to refer a customs penalty suit to court-annexed mediation before the Court of International Trade following the court's recent decision rejecting Katana Racing's renewed motion to dismiss. The parties said in light of the decision, they "believe that resolution to this litigation could potentially be reached through court-annexed mediation" (U.S. v. Katana Racing, CIT # 19-00125).
In two complaints before the Court of International Trade, Chinese pea protein exporters argued that the Commerce Department had unlawfully refused to assign separate rates to either mandatory respondent in a 2023 review, resulting in a separate rate dumping margin of 122.19% and a countervailing duty rate of 15.78% (Zhaoyuan Junbang Trading Co. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00179, -00180).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 22 denied exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari's (Erdemir's) motion to consolidate three of its appeals, which all involve the sunset review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Turkey. Judge William Bryson said the court already has designated the cases as "companion cases," adding that "Erdemir has not shown compelling reasons to require all parties to file consolidated briefs" (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #s 24-2242, -2243, -2249).