The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade committed a logical error when it dismissed a steel importer's and purchaser's bid to reliquidate two entries subject to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, the importer and purchaser said in a brief attempting to keep their case alive. Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel, the purchaser, and Voestalpine USA, the importer, moved for a reconsideration of CIT's decision, which held that the plaintiffs had already received the relief available to them from the Commerce Department in the form of a product exclusion but failed to preserve their ability to receive a refund through a protest or an extension of liquidation (Voestalpine USA Corp., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03829).
The Commerce Department requested a voluntary remand in a Court of International Trade case over steel exporter Mirror Metals' denied Section 232 exclusion requests, finding that it is appropriate to reconsider the exclusion denials. The case concerns 45 exclusion requests for flat-rolled stainless steel products that are supposedly used in large-scale architectural projects. The requests saw objections from three domestic manufacturers, leading to Commerce denying all 45 exclusion bids. The leading reason for the denials given by Commerce was the availability of the domestic capacity to make the products in question (Mirror Metals, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00144).
The Department of Justice urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to uphold a lower court ruling denying a group of domestic steel manufacturers the right to intervene in Section 232 exclusion denial cases, in a Nov. 17 brief, arguing that none of the producers has a legally protectable interest in the proceedings. DOJ said that the steel makers' economic interests are insufficient to warrant intervention in the cases since they are "indirect and contingent," seeing as the companies argue that their interest in the exclusions derives from "sales opportunities."
U.S. Steel Corporation should not be allowed to intervene in a Section 232 exclusion denial case because it has already been denied this right three other times and has no interest that can support intervention, Russian steelmaker NLMK argued in a Nov. 17 brief to the Court of International Trade. The critical flaw in U.S. Steel's intervention bid is that case is about the Commerce Department's action and not about U.S. Steel, NMLK said (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00507).
The Supreme Court of the U.S. may hear an appeal of the key Transpacific Steel LLC v. United States decision, seeing it as an opportunity to discuss the question of the extent to which Congress delegated tariff powers to the president, Julie Mendoza of Morris Manning, counsel to plaintiff-appellee Borusan Mannesmann, told Trade Law Daily. Having recently petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the case, Mendoza said that having the case sit in front of the nation's highest court will also give her and her team a chance to argue that the most recent decision in the case runs afoul of the intelligible principle standard for delegation of powers to the president as it relates to Section 232.
The DOJ further argued for the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions since the 19 entries that are the subject of litigation have not been liquidated. In a Nov. 12 brief filed at the Court of International Trade, DOJ said that the plaintiffs, Borusan Mannesmann and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, wrongly argue that their protests don't concern the tariff classification of their merchandise. The protests at issue seek use of a tariff exclusion, which is a challenge of the tariff classification, DOJ said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., v. U.S., CIT #21-00186).
Transpacific Plaintiffs to Petition SCOTUS Over Decision Permitting Post-Deadline Section 232 Action
A key U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that found that the president can impose greater Section 232 national security tariffs beyond the 105-day deadline for action laid out in the statute is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Transpacific Steel, Borusan Mannesmann and The Jordan International Company filed a petition Nov. 12 in an attempt to get the high court to side with the original Court of International Trade decision, which held that the president may not make such adjustments.
American steel giant U.S. Steel Corp. is seeking a stay in Russia-based steel company NLMK Pennsylvania's challenge to the Commerce Department's Section 232 exclusion denials for its steel entries until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rules on whether U.S. Steel can intervene in related cases. In its Oct. 27 motion at the Court of International Trade, U.S. Steel argued that "it is vital" for it to be able to intervene in the case and "represent its interests in the continued imposition of the Section 232 tariffs -- interests that will not be adequately represented by Defendant in this action" (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00507).
The Commerce Department filed Oct. 25 for a voluntary remand of a Section 232 exclusion case with the consent of the counsel for the plaintiff, importer CPW America Co., at the Court of International Trade. Finding that the remand would expedite the case's resolution, Commerce said that because the case involves only one exclusion request, the agency would be able to reconsider the exclusion within the standard 90-day remand period (CPW America Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00335).