Strait Shipbrokers and its managing director, Murtuza Mustafa Munir Basrai, filed a complaint July 19 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging its Specially Designated Nationals listing (see 2101050012). The Trump administration made the designation after concluding the company helped with the transport of petroleum from Iran. Straight Shipbroker countered, claiming it's not required to check the origin of its cargo in its role as a broker and that the designation was made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and its Fifth Amendment rights to due process (Strait Shipbrokers Pte. Ltd. et al. v. Blinken et al., D.C. Cir. #21-01946).
Plaintiffs in a case over the fifth administrative review of the countervailing duty order on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China were granted a consent motion for a statutory injunction, enjoining liquidation on their solar cell entries on July 30. Prior injunctions held up the liquidation of the entries, but they have come to pass, prompting the need for the new injunction. The companies whose entries are now suspended are Changzhou Trina Solar Energy Co., Trina Solar (Changzhou) Science & Technology Co., Changzhou Trina Solar Yabang Energy Co. and Yancheng Trina Solar Energy Technology Co (Canadian Solar Inc., et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #19-00187).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal from Novolipetsk Steel Public Joint Stock Company and Novex Trading (Swiss) SA on July 29 in a challenge of the 2016-17 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on hot-rolled flat rolled carbon-quality steel products. In November 2020, the Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in the case, holding that it was reasonable for the agency to find that the statute permitted it to disregard sales it found were not bona fide from the review. After Novolipetsk and Novex took their case to the Federal Circuit, the plaintiffs also moved to reconsider the case in the trade court. CIT then denied their motion to reconsider the case in an April decision. The Federal Circuit's dissmissal of the appeal came without opinion.
Turkish steel exporter Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi's argument that an “extraordinary circumstance” existed, precluding the timely filing of a questionnaire response in antidumping and countervailing duty cases, is not backed by substantial evidence, the Justice Department said in two July 27 reply briefs. By Celik's counsel's own admission, an oversight in the time difference for the filing deadline resulted in the untimely submission, not counsel's emergency medical procedure, DOJ said (Celik Halat ve Tel Sanayi A.S. v. United States, CIT #21-00045, #21-00050).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. is seeking more than $18 million from importer Crown Cork & Seal in a July 28 complaint filed in the Court of International Trade alleging that the company fraudulently misclassified its metal lid imports to skirt a 2.6% duty rate. The goods -- metal lids for food, beverage, household and consumer products -- are properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8309.90.0000 and are dutiable at that 2.6% rate, the Department of Justice said. Instead, CCS attempted to classify its metal lid imports from Europe between 2004 and 2009 under HTS subheading 7326.90.1000, which has duty-free treatment (The United States v. Crown Cork & Seal, USA, Inc. et al., CIT #21-361).
A request from a group of four Chinese steel companies to dismiss a case in which the U.S. government alleged the group stole trade secrets was denied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on July 26. The group, comprising Pangang Group Company (PGC) and three of its subsidiaries, is accused of stealing DuPont trade secrets for the production of titanium dioxide in violation of the Economic Espionage Act. In their motion to dismiss, the group claimed immunity from criminal prosecution under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), arguing that the group is an "instrumentality" of the Chinese government.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Defendant-intervenors and antidumping case petitioners, led by Catfish Farmers of America, filed comments to remand results in the Court of International Trade on July 28 in a case over an antidumping review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. Having already submitted comments on the remand (see 2107160018), the catfish farmers added final comments, arguing that Commerce's continued reliance on total adverse facts available is properly supported by findings "already affirmed by the court," and that Commerce fully addressed the issues remanded by the court despite no longer relying on them (Hung Vuong Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00055).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: