The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed a lawsuit from clothing company Smart Apparel (U.S.) that accused Nordstrom of breaching a contract when it canceled orders from Smart Apparel that were suspected of being made with forced labor (Smart Apparel (U.S.) v. Nordstrom, W.D. Wash. # 23-01754).
The Court of International Trade on March 20 upheld the International Trade Commission's decision not to cumulate Brazil's imports with the other countries included in the five-year sunset review of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on cold-rolled steel products from Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the U.K.
Russia accepted the World Trade Organization's agreement on fisheries subsidies, the WTO announced this week. Seventy-two members have accepted the deal, which is 38 shy of the two-thirds mark needed for full adoption.
The Council of the EU on March 19 approved reform efforts for the EU Court of Justice, transferring jurisdiction of various issues to the EU General Court. The council must now approve amendments to both courts' rules of procedure before the changes take effect.
Russian exporters PhosAgro, Apatit and Industrial Group Phosphorite will appeal a January Court of International Trade decision sustaining the Commerce Department's use of exporter PhosAgro's profit before tax number instead of its gross profit mark when calculating the company's phosphate mining rights benefit (see 2401190037). The exporter will take the case contesting the countervailing duty investigation on phosphate fertilizers from Russia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In its decision, the trade court rejected PhosAgro's clam that its gross profit number "more accurately reflects the commercial reality" of its pricing process (The Mosaic Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 21-00117).
The D.C. U.S. District Court on March 11 dismissed a lawsuit from a senior Democratic Republic of Congo elections official challenging his sanctions designation, saying the listing wasn't "arbitrary or capricious" and that due process laws weren't violated.
Proposed intervenors in a lawsuit challenging the Commerce Department's antidumping and countervailing duty pause on Southeast Asian solar panels further defended their motion to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, claiming that solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy wrongly characterize the suit as being a Section 1581(i) action (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public March 19 sent back the Commerce Department's decision to grant respondent Gujarat Fluorochemicals a constructed export price offset in the antidumping duty investigation on granular polytetrafluorethylene resin from India, despite finding that the company failed to establish the amount and nature of the offset.
A lawsuit between the trustee of a Russian businessman and his "long term" partner will go to trial after the U.K. High Court of Justice on March 13 declined to dismiss their defense, setting up a case that could shed light on the role sanctioned parties play in property disputes.
Christopher Curran, litigation partner at White & Case, has joined a scope case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of Japanese exporter Sigma Corp., according to a March 18 order from the appellate court. The suit was originally brought by manufacturer Vandewater International on whether its steel branch outlets fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings from China (see 2306020065). Curran joins trade lawyers Lucius Lau, Ron Kendler and Walter Spak in representing Sigma (Vandewater International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1093).