World Trade Organization members attending the June 25-28 Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Committee meeting discussed 21 proposals for the sixth review of the operation and implementation of the WTO Agreement on the Application of SPM. The proposal covered topics such as "addressing modern challenges and emerging risks, voluntary third-party assurance programmes, regionalization, technology, transparency, and maximum residue levels," the WTO said.
Kazakhstan formally accepted the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies July 1, bringing to 78 the number of countries that have accepted the deal. The WTO requires 32 more to reach the two-thirds threshold needed for the agreement to be able to enter into force.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. will appeal a Court of International Trade decision finding that importer Fraserview Remanufacturing Inc. didn't need a protest to file suit at the trade court for its entries that were erroneously deemed liquidated while liquidation was suspended (see 2401250039). The court said that because the statute for deemed liquidation requires that the entries not be suspended, CBP's notices of deemed liquidation didn't operate to actually liquidate the entries. The government on July 1 said it will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Fraserview Remanufacturing Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00244).
Exporter Sahamitr Pressure Container will appeal a May Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's recalculation of exporter Sahamitr's sales expenses in the 2019-20 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on steel propane cylinders from Thailand (see 2405020029). The court said that Sahamitr failed to undermine Commerce's finding that the company's monthly-based calculation of its sales costs were distortive. The exporter said on July 1 that it will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Sahamitr Pressure Container v. U.S., CIT # 22-00107).
Tire importer ZC Rubber America told the Court of International Trade on July 2 that the government and petitioner Accuride Corp. failed to defend the Commerce Department's "substantial transformation" analysis regarding steel truck wheels made in Thailand with either Chinese-origin rims or discs (Asia Wheel Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00143).
Litigants in a pair of cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit jumped on the U.S. Supreme Court's move last week to axe the principle of agency deference when interpreting ambiguous statutes (see 2406280051). In notices of supplemental authority, two importers told the appellate court that the Court of International Trade relied on the now-defunct Chevron deference standard.
The Court of International Trade earlier this month approved amendments to its Form 13, which is used to disclose corporate affiliations and financial interest. The changes will take effect Aug. 1, the court announced.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on June 21 granted a group of Spanish olive growers' motion to dismiss five of its cases on various reviews of the countervailing duty order on ripe olives from Spain. The dismissals come after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected a challenge from the olive exporters regarding the Commerce Department's determination on whether demand for a processed agricultural product is "substantially dependent" on its raw upstream iteration for purposes of assigning countervailing duties (see 2405200045). CAFC said the trade court was wrong to impose a 50% threshold in determining substantial dependence (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. United States, CIT # 24-00078, 23-00076, 23-00039, 22-00106, 21-00338).