The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on July 11 ordered U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman to "engage in informal mediation" with at least one of her appeals court colleagues -- Judges Kimberly Moore, Sharon Prost or Richard Taranto -- regarding the trio's investigation on Newman's fitness to continue serving on the Federal Circuit. The mediation shall occur before Judge Thomas Griffith, who sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2020 (Pauline Newman v. Kimberly A. Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).
The European Commission on July 7 opened a consultation on the use of its enforcement regulation in a World Trade Organization dispute on Indonesia's export restrictions on nickel. The move follows Indonesia's appeal of a WTO dispute panel ruling favorable to the EU. Due to the lack of a functioning Appellate Body, all appeals at the WTO are in limbo.
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 in a case on the 2014-15 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on solar cells from China. In the opinion, the Federal Circuit said that a company unable to prove it has entries for the purposes of being granted a separate AD rate should not automatically be rescinded from the review (see 2305190060). While the court found unconvincing the government's claim that it is not required to rescind a review for a company with no entries, the judges did rule that exporter Ningbo Qixin did not establish that it had no shipments, even though the agency rejected a separate rate for the company since it couldn't verify any entries (Canadian Solar International v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 20-2162).
Judge Todd Hughes at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during July 10 oral argument expressed doubt over antidumping duty petitioner Wheatland Tube's claim that the Commerce Department can make a cost-based particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test where normal value is based on constructed value. The judge referenced the Federal Circuit's past ruling in Hyundai Steel v. U.S., which found that cost-based PMS adjustments cannot be made to the sales-below-cost test (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1175).
The Commerce Department failed to explain its deviation from its past decision finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's first through third debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable, the Court of International Trade said in a July 7 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that the evidence Commerce cited in justifying the past decision did not directly deal with these three restructurings and is thus "not a sufficient explanation to justify departing from its standard practice." Choe-Groves also sent back Commerce's uncreditworthy benchmark rate because the department failed to address potentially contradictory evidence as part of the 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel goods from South Korea.
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 5 dismissed importer Amsted Rail's conflict-of-interest suit concerning attorney Daniel Pickard and his firm, Buchanan Ingersoll, in an injury proceeding at the International Trade Commission. Amsted Rail filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal a few days prior in the suit that the Court of International Trade previously dismissed for lack of jurisdiction (see 2211160057).
The Court of International Trade on July 6 again remanded the Commerce Department's refusal to start a successor-in-interest changed circumstances review for exporter GreenFirst Forest Products under the countervailing duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada, finding the agency did not address CIT's concerns in an initial remand about how the agency's successor-in-interest practice applies to non-individually examined companies
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's bid to dismiss the government's claim that the infamous crypto-exchange executive violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's anti-bribery provision (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).