The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judges Kimberly Moore, Sharon Prost and Richard Taranto's motion for the establishment of a dispute resolution process in Judge Pauline Newman's suit against the three judges' fitness investigation on the 96-year-old judge. The D.C. court said in the text-only order that the parties are to contact Chief Circuit Mediator Robert Frost for further directions on establishing the dispute resolution procedure (The Hon. Pauline Newman v. The Hon. Kimberly A. Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).
The government hasn't justified its decision to keep a vast majority of the information confidential as part of Chinese printer cartridge maker Ninestar Corp.'s case against its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, Ninestar argued. Filing its opposition to the U.S.'s motion to enter an amended protective order on Oct. 23 at the Court of International Trade, the exporter said the motion would "give the Government essentially unreviewable discretion to seal information, placing it beyond Ninestar's review" and is just "another bid for delay and distraction" (Ninestar Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00182).
The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 23 opinion denied importer PrimeSource Building Products' motion for a partial stay of enforcement of a judgment in its suit against President Donald Trump's expansion of Section 232 steel and aluminum duties onto "derivative" products while the decision is on appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court. Judges Jennifer Choe-Groves, M. Miller Baker and Timothy Stanceu said that PrimeSource "has not met its burden of demonstrating its entitlement to a different outcome than that reached by" the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit when that court denied a similar stay bid by the importer.
The European Council adopted the "Anti-Coercion Instrument" Oct. 23 -- a trade tool meant to disincentivize the use of coercive trade and investment measures "through dialogue." Should the dialogue fall through, the instrument allows for the EU to impose countermeasures, including trade restrictions, via "increased customs duties, import or export licences, restrictions on trade in services or access to foreign direct investment or public procurement."
Seven World Trade Organization member countries formally accepted the fisheries subsidies agreement on Oct. 23, pushing the number of WTO members to have done so to 51. This number is 46% of the total number needed for the agreement to take effect, the WTO said. In all, Albania, Australia, Botswana, Cuba, Cote d'Ivoire, South Korea and St. Lucia accepted the deal as part of a two-day meeting of senior officials Oct. 23-24 in Geneva. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, noting that Fiji is expected to accept the deal soon, said the announcement "represents a leap in the right direction."
Noel Quintana and Kelsy Hernandez Quintana, a Florida couple, pleaded guilty on Oct. 19 to conspiring to skirt customs duties on their plywood imports, DOJ announced. Noel also pleaded guilty to one count each of smuggling and violating the Lacey Act, while Kelsey also pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Lacey Act. In all, the Quintanas' scheme allowed them to evade around $42 million in duties, DOJ said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Kazakh silicon metal exporter Tau-Ken Temir (TKT) and the Kazakh Ministry of Trade and Integration asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for 7,000 more words for its reply brief in a case on the countervailing duty investigation on silicon metal from Kazakhstan. The exporter and the government agency said they need double its current word count to respond to the reply briefs filed by the U.S. and the petitioners, which collectively are over 20,000 words (Tau-Ken Temir v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Oct. 20 order granted the U.S. request for 55 more days to file its reply brief in the massive Section 301 litigation, despite an objection from the plaintiff-appellants, led by HMTX Industries. The government's reply brief is now due Dec. 21 following the extension, which was the second of its kind following a 60-day extension (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
The Commerce Department wasn't required to issue exporter Jin Tiong Electrical Materials Manufacturer a questionnaire for purposes of giving the company a separate antidumping duty rate, the U.S. government told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Oct. 20 reply brief. The government said 19 U.S.C. § 1677f-1(c)(1) -- the statute relied on by Jin Tiong to claim that Commerce can't limit the number of respondents when the number is small -- doesn't speak to a process that Commerce must follow in carrying out its separate rate examinations (Repwire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1933).