The U.S. asked for a stay of a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on the alleged transshipment of Chinese xanthan gum via India. The government said the case should be suspended until the Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S. matter is resolved (All One God Faith v. United States, Fed. Cir. #s 23-1078, -1081).
The federal government opposed referral of a customs case to mediation since the proper classification of the product in question -- The Comfy blanket sweatshirt -- "is not of the type that is likely to be resolved through mediation." Filing its opposition to importer Cozy Comfort's motion for a postassignment conference to explore mediation at the Court of International Trade, the U.S. said mediation would not be beneficial, adding that the proceeding is "not a complex case" (Cozy Comfort Company v. United States, CIT # 22-00173).
The Commerce Department erred by not removing countervailing duty costs from the prices used to establish export price and constructed export price in the 2021 review of the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber products from Canada, petitioner Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations argued (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT # 23-00189).
The government "completely" misinterpreted industry abstracts it relied on justify the Commerce Department's classification of backsheet and ethyl vinyl acetate inputs as "sheets" and not "film" for Risen Energy's surrogate values in an antidumping duty review on solar cells from China, Risen argued in a Sept. 7 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Risen Energy Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1550).
The EU General Court on Sept. 6 upheld the European Council's sanctions listing of Belarusian businessman Mikail Gutseriev, finding that the European Council correctly interpreted the listing criteria to include nonfinancial types of support for the Belarus regime. Gutseriev, sanctioned in 2021, argued that the listing criteria under the Belarus sanctions regime should include only financial support, given its language saying parties shall be listed due to their "benefit from or support for" the Belarus government.
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Beryl Howell will take senior status on Feb. 1, 2024, opening a vacancy on the federal court, the U.S. Courts website revealed. Howell was appointed to the court in 2010, prior to which she clerked for Judge Dickinson Debevoise in the District of New Jersey and was an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York. She also worked as the general counsel of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and as commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
The Commerce Department reconsidered its rejection of exporter AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's proposed quality code for sour service petroleum transport on remand at the Court of International Trade. Submitting its redetermination on Sept. 7, the agency said it used the exporter's proposed quality code due to its decision in Bohler Bleche BMBH & Co. v. U.S., leading to an increase in Dillinger's dumping rate to 4.99% as part of the antidumping duty investigation on steel cut-to-length plate from Germany (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. United States, CIT # 17-00158).
The International Trade Commission did not err by declining to resolve an alleged ambiguity in the definition of the domestic like product scope as part of an antidumping duty injury investigation on fabricated structural steel from China, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled. Upholding the commission's negative injury finding, Judges Jimmie Reyna, William Bryson and Tiffany Cunningham said that nothing in the record showed that the ITC declined to address the issue, as claimed by the Full Member Subgroup of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC).
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 6 opinion rejected a U.S. motion to dismiss cases from three importers challenging the Commerce Department's denial of their Section 233 steel tariff exclusion requests. The government said the cases should be tossed since they concern entries that already had been finally liquidated, but Judge M. Miller Baker held that it's possible for the court to order liquidation in Administrative Procedure Act cases brought under Section 1581(i), even if liquidation is final.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: