The Court of International Trade upheld May 16 the Commerce Department’s affirmative circumvention finding for solar cells from Cambodia, saying again -- as it did in a concurrent case -- (see 2505160045) that Commerce’s reliance on one country-of-origin factor, level of research and development investment, was reasonable.
A group of five small importers filed their opposition to the U.S. government's motion to transfer their case challenging President Donald Trump's tariffs imposed on China under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to the Court of International Trade. The importers, led by Simplified, argued that CIT doesn't have exclusive jurisdiction to hear the case because IEEPA doesn't provide for tariffs (Emily Ley Paper v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).
In an April 14 opinion, Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif remanded in part and sustained in part the Commerce Department’s final determination in its administrative review of the antidumping duty order on chlorinated isocyanurates from China. He upheld the department’s usual two-step surrogate selection process under Loper Bright, but he found that Commerce erred in its selection of comparable merchandise for chlorinated isos.
Court of International Trade Judge Timothy Reif sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department’s final determination in its review of chlorinated isocyanurate from China. He affirmed the agency's consideration of Romania as a potential surrogate, saying that a delay in the submission of Romania as a surrogate hadn’t rendered that submission untimely. He also sustained Commerce’s usual practice with regard to surrogate selection, citing Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and its decision to exclude Mexico as a potential surrogate. But he remanded Commerce's finding that calcium hypochlorite and sodium hypochlorite are “comparable” to chlorinated isos, saying clorinated isos aren’t “industrial commodity chemicals” (Bio-Lab v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 24-00024).
In an April 9 memorandum, President Donald Trump instructed all "executive departments and agencies" to "identify certain categories of unlawful and potentially unlawful regulations within 60 days" and establish plans to repeal them. The memo told the agencies to review their regulations for compliance with 10 recent Supreme Court decisions, the first of which is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the decision eliminating the concept of deferring to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of paper importer Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified, on April 3 challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose 20% tariffs on all goods from China. Filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Simplified laid out three constitutional and statutory claims against the use of IEEPA to impose tariffs and one claim that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act for unlawfully modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).
The U.S. defended the Commerce Department's ability to require petitioners to file a notice of intent to participate in sunset reviews at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In a reply brief on March 21, the government said the "whole-text canon of statutory interpretation" doesn't support petitioner Archroma's challenge to this requirement, since the statute on which the company bases its claim "does not limit Commerce’s power to impose procedural requirements to be met before a domestic interested party may submit the information called for by the statute" (Archroma U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2159).
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A panel of attorneys for importers, domestic petitioners and the government discussed March 13 topics that included the consequences -- or lack thereof -- Loper Bright might have on scope ruling litigation.
Three parties in a sprawling dispute over Canadian lumber each replied Feb. 21 to the U.S. argument that Loper Bright doesn't apply to judicial review of the Commerce Department’s administrative review of Canadian softwood lumber (see 2502140050) (Government of Canada v. United States, CIT # 23-00187).