Plaintiff-intervenor Sigma will appeal a September Court of International Trade ruling finding that the Commerce Department properly included Vandewater International's steel branch outlets in the scope of the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China. In an Oct. 21 notice of appeal, Sigma said it would take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the opinion, Judge Leo Gordon said that while the plaintiffs, led by Vandewater, showed information on the record could back a finding that their outlets could be excluded from the scope of the order, he could not agree that Commerce acted unreasonably in reaching the opposing conclusion using each of the (k)(2) factors (see 2209080056) (Vandewater International Inc. v. United States, CIT #18-00199).
The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 21 order granted a consent motion to stay in a case brought by Waaree Energies and ISS Global Forwarding Texas challenging CBP's collection of excess safeguard duties on solar cell imports, given CIT's order finding unlawful the revocation of a tariff exclusion for bifacial solar panels (Waaree Energies v. United States, CIT #22-00296). The case is stayed pending resolution of Solar Energy Industries Association, et al. v. United States at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the SEIA case, the trade court found the proclamation revoking the bifacial solar panel tariff exclusion to be illegal since the law permits only trade liberalizing alterations to the existing safeguard measures (see 2111160032). The appeal is proceeding at the Federal Circuit.
The Commerce Department reasonably found that countervailing duty petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition's allegations that CVD respondent CS Wind Vietnam could potentially manipulate its CVD margin are unsupported, the U.S. argued in Oct. 21 comments on remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. Aside from addressing WTTC's four alleged factors showing potential manipulation individually, the U.S. said that, when taken collectively, the factors still fail to show a potential for manipulation of the margin via CS Wind Vietnam's relationship with its Korean parent company (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT #20-03692).
The Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d statistical test to carry out its differential pricing analysis in rooting out "masked" dumping violates "well-recognized statistical principles," plaintiff HiSteel Co. argued in an Oct. 17 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's assertions that certain statistical assumptions typically required of the d test are not relevant since it using the entire population of data and not just a sample "is mathematically dishonest," the brief said (HiSteel Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00142).
Court of International Trade Court Judge Gary S. Katzmann on Oct. 20 granted a motion to stay penalties for 30 days in a case concerning imported drug paraphernalia. Katzmann ruled against the government in a Sept. 21 opinion (see 2209210034).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should not stay a case led by PrimeSource Building Products pending resolution of another action at the appellate court, the U.S. said in an Oct. 17 reply brief, arguing a stay is "based on nothing but pure speculation as to" PrimeSource's desired outcome of the separate matter. The "unjustifiable delay" that would stem from the stay would cause "inherent harm" to the government, so the stay should be denied, the U.S. said (PrimeSource Building Products Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-2128).
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 18 stopped the International Trade Commission from disclosing the business proprietary information (BPI) of a group of plaintiffs led by Amsted Rail Co. Judge Gary Katzmann granted the plaintiffs' move for a temporary restraining order in an action concerning whether the ITC violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the plaintiffs' 5th Amendment due process rights by giving its former lawyer access to its BPI in his new role as counsel to parties with adverse interests to ARC (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States International Trade Commission, CIT #22-00307).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Janssen Ortho and the government have signed a settlement agreement regarding the duty-free treatment of an active pharmaceutical ingredient imported by Janssen Ortho, according to an Oct. 17 motion asking the Court of International Trade to dismiss related cases. The Oct. 14 settlement agreement resolved all outstanding claims in the three cases and applied the Court’s final judgment from Janssen Ortho, LLC v. U.S., case number 13-00296, to all the relevant entries and drawback claims. In that case, the court ruled that darunavir ethanolate is properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. subheading 2935.00.60 and eligible for duty-free treatment. The settlement preceded an Oct. 17 deadline ordered by CIT Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves, which would have required the company to refile its 13-00296 complaint if the parties could not come to a settlement agreement. Neither Janssen nor DOJ responded to requests for comment on the settlement.
Importer Advantus Corp. moved to voluntarily dismiss its case seeking to obtain Section 301 tariff refunds at the Court of International Trade. The case was previously stayed pending the appeal of decisions made in two cases, ARP Materials v. U.S. and Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. U.S. In these cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the trade court's ruling that a protest was needed to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions (see 2209060035). Both the Federal Circuit and CIT said that they did not have the jurisdiction to hear the challenge since the importers did not timely file protests of the CBP liquidations assessing the Section 301 duties (Advantus Corp. v. United States, CIT #21-00055).