The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Petitioner Nucor Steel filed a July 11 complaint challenging the Commerce Department’s 2022 countervailing duty reviews on certain corrosion-resistant steel products from South Korea. It said again that Commerce should have countervailed three debt-to-equity swaps received by mandatory respondent KG Dongbu Steel in 2015 and 2016, an issue that previously arose in the 2019 administrative review (see 2504110057) (Nucor Corp. v. United States, CIT # 25-00107).
Exporter Trina Solar Science & Technology will appeal a May Court of International Trade decision in which the court held that the Commerce Department properly found that exporters Canadian Solar and Trina Solar circumvented the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Chinese solar cells by sending their products through Thailand (see 2505160045). The trade court sustained the agency's decision to place special emphasis on the amount of research and development investment put into the companies' Thai facilities to show that the companies' processes in the country were "minor or insignificant." Trina will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Trina Solar Science & Technology (Thailand) v. United States, CIT # 23-00227).
The Court of International Trade on July 10 heard oral argument in importer Detroit Axle's case against President Donald Trump's decision to end the de minimis exemption for Chinese goods. Judges Gary Katzmann, Timothy Reif and Jane Restani pressed counsel for both the U.S. and the importer on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act enables the president to take such action, given the specific language at play in both IEEPA and 19 U.S.C. 1321, the de minimis statute (Axle of Dearborn, d/b/a Detroit Axle v. Dep't of Commerce, CIT # 25-00091).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a July 10 text-only order, told parties in a case on the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to file a joint status report that lays out the parties' proposed schedule to govern future proceedings at the district court. The case is currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2507030052). At the district court, Judge Rudolph Contereras held that the Court of International Trade doesn't have exclusive jurisdiction in the case, since IEEPA categorically doesn't provide for tariffs (see 2505290037) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, D.D.C. # 25-01248).
Exporter The Ancientree Cabinet Co. and importer Craft33 Products said in two July 7 motions for judgment that the Commerce Department had again wrongly applied adverse facts available claiming potential use of China’s Export Buyer’s Credit Program (The Ancientree Cabinet Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00223).
The Commerce Department released July 9 its remand results of a scope ruling on calcium glycinate from India, Japan and Thailand. It said it now finds that calcium glycinate is covered by antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on glycine “regardless of the producer, exporter, or importer” (Deer Park Glycine, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 23-00238).
The Court of International Trade's recent "dictum" on whether the Tariff Act of 1930 lets the Commerce Department impose antidumping duties and countervailing duties on an upstream product that's incorporated into a downstream product imported into the U.S. isn't relevant for adjudication of a pair of separate AD/CVD scope cases, the U.S. said (Wabtec Corporation v. U.S., CIT #s 23-00160, -00161).
The U.S. opposed exporter Camel Group's motion to unredact part of the record in the company's case against its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, arguing on July 10 that disclosure of information deemed confidential "would substantially harm the Government's" law enforcement efforts in applying the UFLPA. The government told the Court of International Trade it has a "strong interest in protecting the law enforcement sensitive information," while Camel has "no compelling argument as to why disclosure to the public, or to Camel, as opposed to confidential disclosure, is necessary" (Camel Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
The Commerce Department showed its work in finding that exporter East Sea Seafoods is independent of the Vietnamese government and thus eligible for a separate rate under an antidumping duty order on Vietnamese catfish in the 2019-20 administrative review of the AD order, the Court of International Trade held on July 10. Judge M. Miller Baker also held that Commerce properly assigned exporter Green Farms Seafood Joint Stock Company an AD rate taken from a simple average of respondent NTSF Seafood's zero percent rate and East Sea's adverse facts available rate.