The Court of International Trade on April 8 referred LE Commodities' challenge to 14 denied requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs to mediation before Judge Leo Gordon. The order was penned by Judge M. Miller Baker, who gave the parties until July 8 to complete the mediation, unless Gordon "recommends an extension" (LE Commodities v. United States, CIT # 22-00245).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 8 dismissed importer Rimco's challenge of antidumping and countervailing duties on its steel wheel entries, for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
Joseph Maher, former acting general counsel of DHS, has joined Nixon Peabody as partner in the national security and resilience practice, the law firm announced. Maher worked at DHS for over 21 years, where he advised "on all legal aspects of the department’s security and enforcement operations," the firm said.
The U.K. High Court of Justice last week said it has jurisdiction to hear a nearly $10 billion dispute between Russian aircraft companies and the owners, lessors and financing banks of those aircraft leased to Russia.
Two Russian nationals living in Florida pleaded guilty this week to conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act by illegally shipping aviation technology to Russian end users, DOJ announced April 4.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade granted importer Blockstream Services USA's bid to set aside the court's dismissal of the company's customs suit on the classification of its cryptocurrency miners. The suit was dismissed for failure to prosecute after Blockstream didn't move to extend the time for the case to remain on the customs case management calendar (see 2404030045). Blockstream had apologized to the court for the calendaring error that led to the dismissal. Judge Gary Katzmann granted the motion, and the case will remain on the case management calendar through March 31, 2026 (Blockstream Services USA v. United States, CIT # 22-00101).
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit questioned the Commerce Department's decision to pull forward a 78% adverse facts available rate from a prior antidumping duty review in the 2018-19 AD review on steel nails from Taiwan, but not the lower rate for the non-individually examined respondents (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2128).
Changes to the Court of International Trade's fees and "Listing of Judges of the Court" were made March 20 and will become effective May 1, the court announced. The judges listings were amended to add new appointees Lisa Wang and Joseph Laroski.
The Court of International Trade on April 4 upheld the Commerce Department's use of the invoice date rather than the contract date for the date of sale for respondents Kaptan Demir and Colakoglu Metalurji in the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey.