The Supreme Court of the U.S. in a Jan. 5 order gave the government more time to respond to a petition in a broad challenge to President Donald Trump's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. The U.S. now has until Feb. 21 to respond after arguing that it needed additional time due to the "heavy press of earlier assigned cases to the attorneys handling this matter" (USP Holdings v. United States, U.S.S.C. #22-0565)
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 4 order dismissed a customs case from importer Spartan Tools. The company brought the case looking to recover Section 301 duties it paid on its machinery part imports entered under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 8412.29.8015, 8479.90.9496, 8483.30.8090 and 8483.50.9040, for which the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative granted an exclusion. The case was tossed for lack of prosecution since it was placed in the customs case management calendar and not removed "at the expiration of the applicable period of time of removal," the trade court said (Spartan Tools v. United States, CIT #20-03903).
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 5 text-only order denied the antidumping petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire's motion to extend time to file opposition to plaintiff Oman Fastener's bid for a preliminary injunction against cash deposit requirements. Oman Fasteners on Jan. 4 filed its opposition to the time extension request, telling the trade court that "because the continued existence of Oman Fasteners hangs precariously in the balance, and because the ten-day extension proposed by Mid Continent would compound Oman Fasteners’ substantial ongoing irreparable harm, this is that rare case" requiring the extension bid to be denied (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT #22-00348).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 20 opinion made public Jan. 4 upheld the Commerce Department's remand results in a case involving the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China. In its remand results, Commerce changed how it determined surrogate values for silver paste, a solar cell input, while revising its use of adverse facts available, choosing to use partial neutral facts available. The agency stuck by its positions, however, on which surrogate values to use for backsheet and ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA). Judge Claire Kelly found these positions to be reasonable.
The Commerce Department properly found that it had enough industry support to kick off the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products from India, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a Jan. 5 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade's ruling, Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Sharon Prost ruled that Commerce permissibly found that the term "producer" did not include quartz surface product fabricators and that the agency backed its finding that fabricators are not producers with substantial evidence via its six-factor production-related activities test.
Modified vertical shaft engines with a vertical take off shaft and a horizontal crankshaft fall within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on vertical shaft engines between 99cc and up to 225cc and parts thereof from China (A-570-124/C-570-125), the Commerce Department said in a Dec. 22 scope ruling. The scope ruling applied to modified vertical shaft engines, "such as the modified R210-S engine manufactured by Chongqing Rato Technology Co."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate Jan. 4 in a case denying a group of U.S. steel companies the right to intervene in a series of cases challenging denied exclusion requests for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. The mandate comes after the court denied the steel companies' rehearing bid over the decision (see 2212280017). In the case, the Court of International Trade and later the Federal Circuit said that a proposed intervenor must have a legally protectable interest in the transaction at issue, have a direct relationship with the litigation where the intervenor will either gain or lose by the direct judgment, or show its interests are not adequately expressed by the government. The courts ruled the steel companies failed on all three fronts.
Surety company Navigators Insurance Co. is seeking over $1.5 million from importer Dehui Solar (US) over the company's failure to reimburse Navigators for customs bond payments for solar panel imports. In a complaint at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, the surety said that Dehui Solar violated the terms of their indemnity agreement by failing to pay duties, taxes, fees or other charges related to the import activities (Navigators Insurance Co. v. Dehui Solar Power Inc., D. Del. #22-01605).