Jared Cynamon, a former trade attorney at the Commerce Department, has joined Sandler Travis as an associate, according to the law firm and Cyanmon's LinkedIn page. Cynamon spent the past four years at Commerce, where he reviewed antidumping and countervailing duty determinations.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 10 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Surety firm American Alternative Insurance Corp. filed a cross-claim in a customs penalty suit brought by the U.S. against importer Repwire, its manager Jose Pigna and the surety. On Dec. 9, American Alternative Insurance told the Court of International Trade that Repwire and Pigna should be compelled to pay the over $13 million penalty and that the company and its manager "are obligated to indemnify" the insurance company for the amount of duties and fees being demanded (United States v. Repwire, CIT # 24-00173).
Chinese-origin countertop importer Superior Commercial Solutions argued Dec. 6 it hadn’t waived its challenge to the CBP regulation that allows it to initiate Enforce and Protect Act investigations based on a petition’s “date of receipt,” which is determined by the agency (Superior Commercial Solutions v. United States, CIT # 24-00052).
The Commerce Department published its final rule updating various antidumping and countervailing duty procedures, most notably changing its nonmarket economy policy to allow for the use of a country-wide NME rate on entities in third countries that are "owned or controlled" by the nonmarket economy. The final rule revises multiple proposed changes the agency released in July, most of which codify the agency's existing practices surrounding the collection of cash deposits, calculation of an all-others' rate, respondent selection and attribution of subsides received by cross-owned input producers to countervailing duty respondents. The rule takes effect Jan. 15.
The Commerce Department didn't properly explain its approach to its surrogate financial ratio calculation in the 2016-17 review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Dec. 9. Judges Timothy Dyk and Kara Stoll said Commerce failed to provide an "adequate explanation" regarding its treatment of overhead costs in coming up with the surrogate financial ratio.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Dec. 9 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Various U.S. manufacturers dropped a pair of cases at the Court of International Trade on Dec. 5, following the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision finding that the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 doesn't require payouts of interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, to affected domestic producers (see 2407150031). The appellate court said earlier this year that the act doesn't require delinquency interest payments but only payments of interest that's "earned" on antidumping and countervailing duties and "assessed" under the associated AD or CVD order. The two cases -- one led by Novolex, doing business as Hilex Poly Co. and the other by Bassett Furniture Industries -- had been stayed pending the outcome of the lead case (Bassett Furniture Industries v. U.S., CIT # 19-00073) (Novolex d/b/a Hilex Poly Co. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00074).
The U.S. opposed Canadian lumber exporters' bid to get the court to clarify its instruction to CBP to "discontinue ... the collection of" cash deposits made on entries brought in before a prior Court of International Trade decision, which said it wasn't equitable to subject the companies' exports to the countervailing duty order on Canadian softwood lumber (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, CIT # 19-00122).