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 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 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 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.
The Court of International Trade should grant the government's motion to reconsider its decision to send back the Commerce Department's use of a transaction-specific margin for an adverse facts available rate it assigned to an antidumping duty respondent, the American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring (AMMWF) argued in a Feb. 27 response (Fusong Jinlong Wooden Group v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00144).
The Commerce Department unlawfully failed to adjust non-selected companies' cash deposit and assessment rates to account for export subsidy offsets in an antidumping duty review, an association of Indian producers and exports of quartz surface products said in a Feb. 27 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Federation of Indian Quartz Surface Industry v. U.S., CIT # 23-00026).