Various importers and exporters are looking to intervene in a suit from solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy challenging the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Southeast Asian countries found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these goods from China (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).
A Commerce Department scope ruling on T-series aluminum sheet "would overturn more than 10 years of black-letter law related to scope inquiries," importer Valeo North America told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 26. Filing an opening brief at the appellate court, Valeo said that Commerce bucked the traditional framework for finding if a good is within the scope of an antidumping and countervailing duty order by extending "beyond the express scope language" to rely on improper (k)(1) factors (Valeo North America v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1189).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 30 rejected importer Spirit Aerosystems' claim that the "preceding indented text" to any 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading should be read as part of the article description for purposes of claiming a substituted unused merchandise drawback. Spirit's had argued its 10-digit subheading begin with the superior text "For use in civil aircraft" as opposed to "other," avoiding a prohibition on unused merchandise drawback for HTS subheadings that begin with the word "other." But Judge Claire Kelly said the "plain meaning" of the drawback statute refers to the words adjacent to the 10-digit number and not the superior indented text, and that Congress meant to exclude article descriptions with the word "other" to eliminate the need for CBP to find on a case-by-case basis whether goods are sufficiently similar to be eligible for drawback.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 29 granted in part and denied in part the U.S. bid to sanction a wristwatch exporter for late supplemental discovery materials. Judge Jane Restani said the exporter hadn't made a “sufficiently diligent” search for some of the materials, though she also said she was “mystified” by both parties’ actions involving others.
The following trade-related lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A steelmaker petitioner opposed the results of the Commerce Department’s second remand in a case challenging the results of a 2018 administrative review on South Korean carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate, saying that Commerce didn’t explain why the petitioner hadn’t provided enough evidence to prompt the agency to examine a particular subsidy (Nucor v. U.S., CIT # 21-00182).
Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif heard oral argument Jan. 18 in a case concerning the 2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on mattresses from Vietnam. Parties discussed the Commerce Department’s reliance on incomplete records and public access to a surrogate’s financial information (Ashley Furniture Industries v. U.S., CIT # 21-00283).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 26 granted the U.S. request for a voluntary remand in an Enforce and Protect Act case led by American Pacific Plywood to address the Federal Circuit's holding in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S. In that decision, the appellate court said CBP violated an EAPA respondent's due process rights by not providing it with access to confidential business information in the investigation (American Pacific Plywood v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2321).
An exporter Jan. 26 asked the Court of International Trade to review the Commerce Department’s rejection of a scope ruling application that the agency said was duplicative (Deer Park Glycine, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 24-00016).
Chinese printer cartridge exporter Ninestar Corp. argued that it didn't need to exhaust its administrative remedies regarding its listing on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List before seeking judicial review because the case arises under the Administrative Procedure Act. As a result, exhaustion is required only when an agency rule requires appeal before review, Ninestar said (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).