In a decision made public Aug. 19, Court of International Trade Judge Claire Kelly again said the Commerce Department’s de facto specificity finding regarding the South Korean steel industry’s use of a countrywide electricity program lacked a rational explanation. Remanding the finding again, she told Commerce to apply the disproportionality analysis she defined in her first remand order (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00211).
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Four importers recently dismissed their cases at the Court of International Trade regarding President Donald Trump's decision from his first administration to revoke a Section 201 tariff exclusion for bifacial solar panels. The importers are Shining Solutions, Light & Hope Energy, JinkoSolar (U.S.) and Longi Solar Technology (U.S.) (Shining Solutions v. U.S., CIT # 22-00301) (Light & Hope Energy v. U.S., CIT # 22-00303) (JinkoSolar (U.S.) v. U.S., CIT # 22-00241) (Longi Solar Technology (U.S.) v. U.S., CIT # 22-00212).
Filing its own brief in support of its negative injury determination regarding aluminum extrusions from multiple countries, the International Trade Commission said Aug. 11 that it reasonably found that aluminum extrusion imports didn’t significantly undersell domestic products, noting the imports oversold them about two-thirds of the time and only undersold them the other one-third (U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition v. United States, CIT # 24-00209).
The Commerce Department properly relied on Maersk data as the surrogate value for ocean freight and found that certain fabricated steel components used by respondent Zhejiang Dingli Machinery shouldn't be valued using data under Harmonized System subheadings covering "primary or raw steel products," petitioner Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment argued. Submitting remand comments to the Court of International Trade on Aug. 11, the coalition urged the court to accept the agency's remand results in the antidumping duty investigation on mobile access equipment from China (Coalition of American Manufacturers of Mobile Access Equipment v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00152).
Exporters Maquilacero and Tecnicas de Fluidos on Aug. 13 opened a five-count case against the 2022-23 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Mexico. The companies challenged the Commerce Department's findings that products made by Tecnicas from light-walled rectangular tubing are within the scope of the order and the agency's decision to collapse Maquilacero and Tecnicas (Maquilacero S.A. de C.V. v. United States, CIT # 25-00176).
The International Trade Commission urges an approach to the redaction of business proprietary information that "the law forbids," Alex Moss, executive director of the Public Interest Patent Law Institute, said in an Aug. 13 amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a case on the commission's redaction policy. Moss said the ITC unlawfully asks the court to "redact judicial records at its request without requiring any justification" (In Re United States, Fed. Cir. #s 24-1566, 25-127).
The Court of International Trade's Pay.gov system will undergo maintenance Aug. 16 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT, the court announced. Documents requiring payment with this system can't be filed on CM/ECF during this time.
Gary Barnes, the pro se litigant challenging President Donald Trump's tariffs, responded on Aug. 11 to the government's opposition to his motion for reconsideration of the Court of International Trade's decision to dismiss the case for lack of standing. Barnes argued that his amendment to his original complaint helps establish that he has suffered a direct injury from the tariffs (Barnes v. United States, CIT # 25-00043).
CBP improperly interpreted the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from China when it found that 10 importers evaded the orders, importer LE Commodities argued in an Aug. 13 complaint at the Court of International Trade. During the evasion proceeding, CBP said that the China-origin hollow steel billets used by Thai manufacturer Petroleum Equipment (Thailand) Co. to make the subject OCTG were "unfinished OCTG" subject to the orders (LE Commodities v. United States, CIT # 25-00181).