The Court of International Trade on March 3 granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against the liquidation of unliquidated activated carbon entries from separate rate respondents Ningxia Guanghua Cherishmet Activated Carbon and Datong Municipal Yunguang Activated Carbon. Judge Mark Barnett said that he was unpersuaded by the government's claims that the PI motion illegally expands the issues in the case. Citing past CIT judgments, the judge held the enlargement concept is reserved only for cases where an intervenor adds new legal claims to those already before the court.
Solar panel mounts made by China Custom Manufacturing do not qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in a March 2 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade, judges Pauline Newman, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham said the matter is "governed squarely" by the appellate court's ruling in Shenyang Yuanda Aluminum Indus. Eng'g Co. v. U.S., which said a "part or subassembly ... cannot be a finished product."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 24 order stayed a conflict-of-interest suit against the Commerce Department brought by Amsted Rail Co. involving its former counsel, pending resolution of a related matter against the International Trade Commission currently at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Judge Gary Katzmann said that resolution of the related case will likely be controlling on the issues in the present action (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00316).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 24 denied plaintiff Norca Industrial's motion to reconsider the trade court's order staying proceedings of an Enforce and Protect Act case pending resolution of a covered merchandise referral to the Commerce Department. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves denied the order after holding a status conference the same day (Norca Industrial Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00192).
The Commerce Department wrongly denied Section 232 exclusion requests for tin mill products despite a lack of domestic supply, Seneca Foods Corporation said in its Feb. 28 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. The motion challenges eight decisions by Commerce denying Seneca’s requests for exclusions from Section 232 tariffs for tin mill products consisting of steel (Seneca Foods Corp. v. United States, CIT # 22-00243).
The Court of International Trade should deny a motion for a preliminary injunction by two plaintiff-intervenors because granting that injunction would expand the case beyond its original issues in violation of Supreme Court rulings, DOJ argued in its Feb. 28 response at the Court of International Trade. By requesting an injunction that covers entries not initially subject to the proceeding filed by Jilin Bright, plaintiff-intervenors seek to expand the issues covered by the proceeding, DOJ argued (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00336).
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a March 2 opinion upheld a Court of International Trade ruling that found solar panel mounts made by appellant China Custom Manufacturing do not qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. Judges Pauline Newman, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham ruled that the matter is "governed squarely" by the Federal Circuit's ruling in Shenyang Yuanda Aluminum Indus. Eng'g Co. v. U.S., where the court said that a "part or subassembly ... cannot be a finished product." CCM had admitted that its mounts are parts of its solar panel mounting system.
The Commerce Department failed in its obligation to calculate an accurate rate for a Kazakh exporter in a countervailing duty investigation when it unjustifiably rejected the exporter's questionnaire response, despite the response being only two hours late, the exporter, Tau-Ken Temir, said in the opening brief of its appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Tau-Ken Temir v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is "unlikely" to revisit its 2004 decision finding that False Claims Act qui tam cases involving customs duty avoidance belong at the Court of International Trade, law firm Morgan Lewis said in a Feb. 23 blog post. Overturning the decision would require an en banc ruling from the court, something that does not seem probable given that it is a whistleblower action in which the government hasn't intervened, the post said.