US Rails Against US Steel's Arguments for Intervention in Section 232 Exclusion Denial Challenge
Steel giant U.S. Steel Corp. should not be allowed to intervene in a case brought by Seneca Foods Corp.over the Commerce Department's denial of an exclusion from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, DOJ said in an Oct. 26 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The government argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit settled this issue in its California Steel Indus. v. U.S. decision (Seneca Foods Corp. v. United States, CIT #22-00243).
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In California Steel, the Federal Circuit said that U.S. Steel and other domestic steel companies, as objectors to the exclusion requests, do not have a legally protectable interest in Commerce's exclusion denials (see 2209080024). In moving to intervene in Seneca Foods' case, U.S. steel urged the trade court not to follow this decision since it was "wrongly decided." DOJ said that "U.S. Steel offers no authority that authorizes this Court, as a subordinate court, to disregard a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuits simply because the mandate has not issued."
U.S. Steel further tried to distinguish the California Steel case from the present action on the facts, alleging that unlike in California Steel in which the requestors already imported the desired steel products, U.S. Steel has been negotiating with Seneca to sell steel tin products. "Whatever difference in the facts of potential sales opportunities, however, does not alter the conclusion that U.S. Steel’s 'mere economic interests [do] not suffice' as a legally protectable interest,” the government said. "... That is because U.S. Steel’s actual economic interests in the challenged agency actions are 'both indirect and contingent.'"