Jacob Kopnick

Judge Pauline Newman should continue to be assigned new cases during an investigation into her fitness as a judge, she said in a request for an injunction filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia June 27. Represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, Newman sought an injunction against a decision by the Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit barring her from being assigned new cases, claiming that the ban assaults her "judicial independence" and arguing that it infringes on her due process rights and violates Congress’ “exclusive right to impeach and remove Article III judges” (Pauline Newman v. Kimberly A. Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).

The White House on June 28 announced its nominations to fill two vacancies on the Court of International Trade.

The Commerce Department stuck with its use of the Cohen's d test as part of its effort to root out "masked" dumping in an antidumping review after adding certain academic literature to the record as instructed by the Court of International Trade. Submitting its remand results to the trade court June 27, Commerce said certain statistical assumptions -- normality of the distribution, equal variances and around the same sample size -- don't limit the agency's use of the d test, given that it used the entire population of data as opposed to a sample (Nexteel Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 18-00083).

The Court of International Trade granted importer Global Invacom's bid to dismiss its customs suit on the classification of its low noise blocks and switches. The company argued that the items should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 8517.69.00 or 8517.70.00, free of duty, which provides for "transmission apparatus for radio-broadcasting." CBP classified them under subheading 8525.50.30 as "transmission apparatus for radio-broadcasting or television, whether or not incorporating reception apparatus or sound recording or reproducing apparatus; television cameras, digital cameras and video camera recorders: Transmission apparatus: Television: Other," dutiable at 1.8%, 1.3% or 0.9%. In 2020, the trade court sided with the U.S. in a customs spat concerning the terms in headings 8517 and 8525 and the classification of printed circuit board assemblies (Global Invacom v. United States, CIT # 21-00261).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected importer PrimeSource Building Products' bid to stay the court's issuance of its mandate in a suit over President Donald Trump's move to expand Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs onto derivative products. The court ruled that the president legally imposed the tariffs, which were set beyond procedural time limits, and recently rejected PrimeSource's request for a reconsideration of the opinion (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 21-2066).

Antidumping respondents led by Z.A. Sea Foods (ZASF) mischaracterized the record when arguing in favor of the Court of International Trade's rejection of the Commerce Department's finding that ZASF's third country sales to Vietnam were not representative of the company's sales in the third country market, petitioner Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee said in a reply brief. The petitioner told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the trade court illegally reweighed the evidence on ZASF's Vietnamese sales, usurping Commerce's authority in the AD review on frozen warmwater shrimp from India (Z.A. Sea Foods Private Ltd. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1469).

The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission prematurely carried out the second sunset review of the antidumping duty order on stilbenic optical brightening agents from Taiwan and China, U.S. company Archroma U.S. argued in its June 26 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Archroma U.S., Inc. v. United States, CIT # 22-00354).

Japan, Australia and Singapore, co-conveners of the e-commerce talks at the World Trade Organization, recently urged delegates to consider how the initiative can achieve results by the end of the year, the WTO said June 22. Facilitators of small group discussions noted progress on finding "landing zones on text proposals in areas such as cryptography, source code, privacy, 'single windows,' telecommunications, and data flows and data localisation," the WTO said. Other sessions held at the meeting included talks on general and security exceptions, digital inclusion and development and implementation.

Importer Tokyo Ohka Kogyo America filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on June 26 to contest the tariff classification of its photoresists and other chemical products for photographic uses. The suit concerns two different protests filed with CBP, one brought before the agency in 2008 and the other in 2009, though both were denied in 2017. The case on the two protests was severed in 2021 from a separate court action also brought by Tokyo Ohka Kogyo. The company is claiming that CBP improperly classified the merchandise under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 3707.90.32, dutiable at 3.2%, claiming that the goods instead should have been classified under subheading 3707.10.00, dutiable at 3% (Tokyo Ohka Kogyo America v. United States, CIT # 21-00371).

Greek exporter Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry and importer CPW America Co. will appeal a Court of International Trade opinion upholding the use of total adverse facts available due to Corinth's reported costs not being reconciled to its normal books and records. Per the notice of appeal, the exporter will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. At the trade court, Judge Leo Gordon said the law does not require Commerce to respond to Corinth's claims on its use of total AFA, which the agency used in the first instance in the final results of the AD review on large diameter welded pipe from Greece (see 2305010054). The result was a 41.04% margin for Corinth (Corinth Pipeworks Pipe Industry v. United States, CIT # 22-00063).