The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
US, Conservation Groups File for Stay in Suit on NOAA Decision Pending NMFS NZ Comparability Finding
Conservation groups Sea Shepherd New Zealand and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society filed a joint motion for stay of litigation with the government in a case challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2020 findings that New Zealand's standards for its West Coast North Island inshore trawl and set net fisheries were comparable with U.S. regulations (Sea Shepherd New Zealand, et al. v. United States, CIT # 20-00112).
The U.S. opposed a motion at the Court of International Trade from importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) seeking a stay of enforcement of judgment pending appeal in a customs spat on frozen fruit mixtures. The government said that a stay is "unnecessary and not contemplated by the law for this type of case" since Section 1581(a) of CIT's jurisdiction statute tells CBP "not to effectuate a judgment until it becomes final." Since the case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the trade court's judgment is not final (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. United States, CIT # 20-00131).
The Court of International Trade on July 14 upheld the Commerce Department's decisions in an antidumping duty review to disregard respondent Nexteel's accounting method and classify the company's losses from suspension of production lines as general and administrative expenses (G&A) instead of costs of goods sold (COGS). Judge Claire Kelly said that Commerce, in the 2016-2017 administrative review on welded line pipe from South Korea, "adequately explains that the depreciation and other costs" linked with suspended production lines "are more akin to a company-wide cost" instead of a cost of manufacturing borne by specific products.
Defendants in False Claims Act cases still have a valid defense in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu "if there is objective ambiguity" in the law and there exists a "genuine subjective belief in the validity of the claim," Akin Gump lawyer Robert Salcido said in a blog post. FCA defendants also have a valid defense if they "acted with mere negligence or inadvertence," Salcido added, explaining the plaintiff must show that the defendant acted with a "substantial and unjustifiable risk."
Kazakh exporter Tau-Ken Temir filed a corrected version of its opening brief in a countervailing duty case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit after the court rejected the company's efforts to add new claims to its originally filed brief (see 2306300060). The government and petitioners Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon fought against the effort to add new claims to the brief, claiming that it was an attempt to shoehorn arguments on the agency's new regulations concerning untimely submitted files. The new brief filed by TKT makes corrections requested by the clerk of the court in a case on the CVD investigation on silicon metal from Kazakhstan in which the Commerce Department used adverse facts available due to a missed filing deadline (Tau-Ken Temir v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).
The Commerce Department legally weight-averaged or "smoothed" antidumping duty respondent Dongkuk S&C Co.'s "disparate" steel plate costs in the AD investigation on utility scale wind towers from South Korea, the government and petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition argued in a pair of reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Dongkuk S&C Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1419).
The Court of International Trade in a July 13 opinion dismissed a lawsuit from PrimeSource Building Products against President Donald Trump's move to expand Section 232 national security tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivative" products pursuant to the mandate issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The Court of International Trade in a July 12 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision on voluntary remand to slash from 82.05% to 41.03% the antidumping duty rate for the separate rate respondents in the 2016-17 review on diamond sawblades from China. The case had been stayed pending the resolution of a case on the previous administrative review, Bosun Tools Co. v. U.S., in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed Commerce's move to similarly cut the separate rate.
CBP's Office of Regulations and Rulings (ORR) ignored key evidence when it reversed the same agency's Trade Remedy & Law Enforcement Directorate's (TRLED) finding that importer Scioto Valley Woodworking evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, petitioner American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance said in a July 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. U.S., CIT # 23-00140).