The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 28 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's treatment of "shipping revenue, incentive income, interest income and rental income" in setting the selling, general and administrative expense ratio using Turkish firm Ayes Celikhashir VE CT's financial statements.
The Commerce Department amended its regulations on administrative protective orders and serving documents in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings. The changes make service of public documents, public versions of business proprietary documents and proprietary documents via electronic transmission the default method of alternative service "when service cannot be effectuated on ACCESS or when ACCESS is unavailable."
The Court of International Trade's "unique and unprecedented interpretation" of an "other" provision in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule comes from a "false premise" that would greatly expand its scope throughout the HTS, importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods argued in its Sept. 27 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Seeking its preferred classification of frozen fruit mixtures, the importer said the trade court's reading would also "greatly limit operation of the provisions in [General Rules of Interpretation] 3(b) and (c) which are designed to classify mixtures" (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2093).
The World Trade Organization opened registration for interested parties to attend the dispute panel proceedings in the EU's case against the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain. The panel's "substantive meeting" will run from Oct. 25-26. Applications to attend a live screening of the event must be received by Oct. 10.
The U.S. waived its right to reply to a Nebraska man's petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in his case appealing one question from the April 2018 customs broker license exam. Byungmin Chae previously appealed his test results to CBP, the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, receiving credit at every step of the way for some questions he challenged but ultimately falling one question shy of a passing grade (Byungmin Chae v. Janet Yellen, U.S. Sup. Ct. # 23-200).
Consolidated plaintiffs in an antidumping case led by German exporter Salzgitter Mannesmann Grobblech asked the Court of International Trade to be severed from the joint AD matter given that its claims have been resolved by the court. In a Sept. 26 motion, Salzgitter said its case has "no overlap" with the one brought by lead plaintiff AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke and "it is likely that significant additional time will be required to reach a final judgment regarding the claims raised by Dillinger" (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 17-00158).
The Commerce Department's refusal to adjust its threshold for differentiating between different types of pasta as part of the duty calculation in the 2018-19 antidumping review of pasta from Italy violated the law, exporters La Molisana and Valdigrano di Flavio Pagani argued in their Sept. 26 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. La Molisana said Commerce's use of the "protein content on a FDA nutrition fact panel to determine protein content" ignores the different standards used in finding the number of grams of protein (La Molisana v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2060).
The Commerce Department incorrectly found that the South Korean government's provision of port-usage rights to countervailing duty respondent Hyundai Steel Co. was a countervailable benefit, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Hyundai built the port in exchange for the right to collect third-party fees, so the provision of port-usage rights might not be a benefit but rather a payment for "consideration," as used in contract law terms.
Trade attorney Julia Kuelzow has moved from Kelley Drye, where she worked as an associate, to Fenwick & West, where she now works as a trade and national security associate, per a notice at the Court of International Trade. At Fenwick, Kuelzow's practice centers on export controls and sanctions, shifting from her trade remedies work at Kelley Drye. Prior to working at Kelley Drye, Kuelzow served as a law clerk at CIT and as a junior dispute settlement lawyer at the World Trade Organization, according to her LinkedIn page.
China and the EU held the "10th EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue" on Sept. 25, discussing the effect of Russia's war in Ukraine on global economics, food and energy security. Also discussed were "EU concerns on access to the Chinese market," prospects for rebalancing the EU-China trade relationship "on the basis of transparency," and predictability and reciprocity, the European Commission said.