The U.S. and importer Cozy Comfort Co. each filed proposed findings of fact and law earlier this month after a weeklong trial before the Court of International Trade on whether to classify Cozy Comfort's product, The Comfy, as a blanket or a pullover (Cozy Comfort Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00173).
The Commerce Department decided not to countervail benefits received by countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir from Turkey's Banking and Insurance and Transaction Tax exemptions on remand at the Court of International Trade. The agency said that while there was not enough information to find that the exemptions were de facto specific, it faulted its lack of time on remand to gather sufficient information (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 23-00131).
The Court of International Trade's CM/ECF is currently experiencing some technical issues that are causing certain Notices of Electronic Filing, including those with deadlines, to not be received by their intended recipients, a representative of the court said in an email on Jan. 22. The court didn't provide an indication as to when the issue would be resolved.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
In a complaint brought Jan. 21 in the Court of International Trade, exporter East Asia Aluminum Company alleged that a Commerce Department investigation failed to properly account for its scrap byproduct, which East Asia Aluminum continuously reintroduces back into production, which caused a chain of circumstances resulting in a far-too-late affirmative critical circumstances determination (East Asia Aluminum Company v. United States, CIT # 24-00255).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 sustained CBP's decision on remand to find that importer Zinus didn't evade the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The agency made the decision after incorporating a scope ruling from the Commerce Department finding that seven models of metal and wood platform beds imported by Zinus aren't covered by the AD order (see 2501130011) (Zinus v. United States, CIT # 23-00272).
Exporters PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia and PT Grantec Jaya Indonesia -- two companies collapsed into one for antidumping duty procedural purposes -- took to the Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 to contest the 2022-23 review of the AD order on mattresses from Indonesia. Ecos/Grantec challenged the Commerce Department's determination to adjust three expense fields to include "overpaid allowances," along with the agency's adjustments to the companies' total cost of manufacturing under the "transactions disregarded" provision of U.S. antidumping law (PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia v. United States, CIT # 24-00238).
The U.S. filed Jan. 21 to dismiss a 2024 case brought by importer Houston Shutters under 28 U.S.C. 1581(i) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, saying the true nature of the action is a challenge to a scope determination and that the action should have been brought under Section 1581(c) instead (Houston Shutters v. U.S., CIT # 24-00193).
The Commerce Department's exceeded its statutory authority when it revoked an antidumping duty order on the grounds that it never received a notice of intent to participate from an interested domestic party in a sunset review, petitioner Archroma U.S. argued. Filing a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Archroma said Commerce's authority to ensure the "integrity of its procedures" doesn't allow it to "adopt measures exceeding its statutory authority" (Archroma U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2159).
The Commerce Department doesn't fail to act when it denies a Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion request, the Court of International Trade held. Instead, the denial is a "decision" and "not an action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed," Judge Stephen Vaden said, dismissing a host of claims from importer Prysmian Cables and Systems USA against Commerce's rejection of its exclusion requests.