The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Tire exporters Guizhou Tyre and Aeolus Tyre will appeal a Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's decision to deny separate rate status to the companies as part of the seventh administrative review of the antidumping duty order on off-road tires from China. Per a pair of appeal notices, the companies will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the decision, the trade court said the agency properly used the China-wide AD rate of 105.31% on the companies after finding that the companies failed to rebut the presumption of government control (see 2305190026) (Guizhou Tyre v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 17-00100).
The Commerce Department "misapplied the statutory standard" for picking surrogate countries in the 2018-19 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam by excluding candidate countries that have a comparable level of economic development, the Court of International Trade ruled in a July 7 opinion made public July 17.
The EU July 14 asked the World Trade Organization to assess whether the U.S. has complied with a dispute panel report finding that U.S. countervailing duties on Spanish olives violated WTO commitments. The EU said the U.S. "has so far failed to comply with" the panel ruling and that the duties, which could shove Spanish olive exporters out of the American market, remain in place.
The EU General Court last week affirmed a European Commission decision that allowed German securities depository bank Clearstream Banking to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran. The case stemmed from a commission decision in 2020 that authorized Clearstream to withhold payment of dividends to German firm IFIC Holding, whose shares are indirectly held by the Iranian government. IFIC had asked the General Court to annul the decision.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
US, Conservation Groups File for Stay in Suit on NOAA Decision Pending NMFS NZ Comparability Finding
Conservation groups Sea Shepherd New Zealand and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society filed a joint motion for stay of litigation with the government in a case challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2020 findings that New Zealand's standards for its West Coast North Island inshore trawl and set net fisheries were comparable with U.S. regulations (Sea Shepherd New Zealand, et al. v. United States, CIT # 20-00112).
The U.S. opposed a motion at the Court of International Trade from importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) seeking a stay of enforcement of judgment pending appeal in a customs spat on frozen fruit mixtures. The government said that a stay is "unnecessary and not contemplated by the law for this type of case" since Section 1581(a) of CIT's jurisdiction statute tells CBP "not to effectuate a judgment until it becomes final." Since the case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the trade court's judgment is not final (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. United States, CIT # 20-00131).
The Court of International Trade on July 14 upheld the Commerce Department's decisions in an antidumping duty review to disregard respondent Nexteel's accounting method and classify the company's losses from suspension of production lines as general and administrative expenses (G&A) instead of costs of goods sold (COGS). Judge Claire Kelly said that Commerce, in the 2016-2017 administrative review on welded line pipe from South Korea, "adequately explains that the depreciation and other costs" linked with suspended production lines "are more akin to a company-wide cost" instead of a cost of manufacturing borne by specific products.
Defendants in False Claims Act cases still have a valid defense in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu "if there is objective ambiguity" in the law and there exists a "genuine subjective belief in the validity of the claim," Akin Gump lawyer Robert Salcido said in a blog post. FCA defendants also have a valid defense if they "acted with mere negligence or inadvertence," Salcido added, explaining the plaintiff must show that the defendant acted with a "substantial and unjustifiable risk."