The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department dropped the antidumping duty rate for three separate rate respondents in the administrative review of the 2016-17 AD duty order on diamond sawblades and parts thereof from China. Submitting its remand results to the Court of International Trade, Commerce cut the rates from 82.05% to 41.03% following separate litigation at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Bosun Tools Co. v. U.S. (Danyang Weiwang Tools Manufacturing Co. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00006).
The Court of International Trade should sustain the International Trade Commission's critical circumstances determination from its investigation on raw honey from Vietnam, the American Honey Producers Association and Sioux Honey Association said in an April 10 response at the Court of International Trade. The commission asked the court to deny a December motion for judgment by Sweet Harvest Foods and three other plaintiffs challenging the ITC's finding (Sweet Harvest Foods v. U.S., CIT # 22-00188).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Utah did not make it clear whether it meant to dismiss only the first amended complaint or the entire case in a dispute over whether U.S. mattress producers fraudulently submitted two antidumping duty petitions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit said. Remanding the issue to the Utah district court, a three-judge panel at the 10th Circuit said it was unclear whether the trial court's dismissal order in the case is a "final appealable decision" (CVB v. Corsicana Mattress Co., 10th Cir. # 22-4054).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed the briefing schedule in two cases on the Commerce Department's scope ruling excluding certain door thresholds from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, pending resolution of a motion to consolidate the appeals. Both cases were appealed by the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee. In the cases, which were not consolidated at the Court of International Trade, Commerce said door thresholds from Worldwide Door Components and Columbia Aluminum Products qualified for the finished merchandise exclusion. The trade court sustained this finding (Worldwide Door Components v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1532, and Columbia Aluminum Products v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1534).
The U.S. asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for 4,000 more words to file in its response brief in an appeal of the Commerce Department's finding that Vandewater Internaitonal's steel branch outlets are within the scope of an antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings. The government said it needs 18,000 words instead of 14,000 words to address the "volume of information and arguments in the two opening briefs," which total over 22,000 words, and due to the "posture of this appeal and the arguments that appellants make," which require the U.S. to address the "complex procedural history." DOJ added that the other parties already consented to its request for a higher word count (Vandewater International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1093).
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to find that importer SMA Surface's Twilight product does not qualify for the crushed glass surface products exclusion under the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China, in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade on April 12. Commerce said that since SMA Surfaces submitted pictures of only a part of its Twilight slab, it was not able to verify that the product meets the criteria of the exclusion, which requires that there be a one centimeter glass piece within three inches of another one centimeter glass piece across the surface of the product (SMA Surfaces v. United States, CIT # 21-00399).
Commerce erred when it treated Section 232 duties as "U.S. import duties" instead of "special" tariffs in its antidumping duty calculation in an antidumping duty review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey, said Kaptan and Colakoglu, respondents in the review, in an April 10 complaint. Kaptan and Colakoglu also said Commerce incorrectly relied on invoice dates as the dates of U.S. sale rather than contract dates (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi Ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT # 23-00059).
A court order granting an importer Section 232 exclusions for tin mill products would be "extraordinary relief," and the Court of International Trade should instead remand the denied exclusions to the Commerce Department for further consideration, DOJ said in an April 11 response brief at the Court of International Trade. While DOJ argued that Commerce correctly denied six Section 232 exclusion requests, it seeks to reconsider another two, admitting that some of Seneca's arguments warrant further consideration (Seneca Foods Corporation v. United States, CIT # 22-00243).
The Court of International Trade on April 11 ordered the Commerce Department to redo parts of an antidumping duty administrative review on glycine from Japan. Judge Stephen Vaden remanded the final results of the review to Commerce for the agency to reconsider its decision that the "compensation for payment expense" was properly categorized as a general and administrative expense. The judge sustained Commerce's decision to use generally accepted accounting principles-compliant research and development cost records instead of trial balances was supported by law, as well as the agency's finding that respondent Nagase waited too long in finding its own assessment rate error.