Jacob Kopnick

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York should toss the U.S. claim that FTX crypto-exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's anti-bribery provision since the government failed to allege an essential element of the FCPA, Bankman-Fried said in a motion to dismiss. The U.S. said payments were made to unfreeze assets belonging to cryptocurrency firm Alameda Research but didn't say payments were made to "secure or retain a contract with a foreign government agency, gain an unfair advantage, or achieve an objective of the sort addressed in the FCPA’s text or legislative history or in relevant caselaw" (U.S. v. Samuel Bankman-Fried, S.D.N.Y. # 22-00673).

Exporter SeAH Steel Corp. moved to voluntarily toss its appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test, which is used to identify "masked" dumping. All the other parties in the case consented to the dismissal, SeAH said. The move comes just days after Maverick Tube Corp, Tenaris Bay City and IPSCO Tubulars said they no longer would participate in the proceedings (see 2305040021). Recently, the Court of International Trade said Commerce answered questions raised by the Federal Circuit on the use of the d test (see 2302270049) (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1657).

The Commerce Department illegally failed to revoke the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber from Canada for exporter Resolute FP Canada in the expedited first sunset review of the AD order, the exporter argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The four-count suit says that Commerce unlawfully said Resolute FP was selling merchandise below value via its use of the Cohen's d test, which found the company to be guilty of "masked" dumping, and zeroing (Resolute FP Canada v. United States, CIT # 23-00095).

The Commerce Department filed an unopposed voluntary remand motion at the Court of International Trade in an antidumping duty case so the agency can consider information submitted by respondent Officine Tecnosider on Commerce's use of the quarterly cost methodology. DOJ said it couldn't find Commerce's analysis of the quarterly average prices of steel slab when prepping its reply brief to Officine Tecnosider, leading to the remand request. The trade court set a status conference for May 15 to discuss the motion (Officine Tecnosider v. United States, CIT # 23-00001).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should let appellants Tau-Ken Temir and Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration make corrections to their opening brief, they said May 8. The parties said they would have filed an additional extension motion had their counsel known of a previously undisclosed visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Kazakhstan on the day the brief was due (Tau-Ken Temir v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).

The Commerce Department reasonably found that it doesn't need to incorporate offsets for the costs of complying with Germany's Electricity and Energy Tax Acts in countervailing duty rate calculations for respondent BGH Edelstahl Siegen, the Court of International Trade said. Ruling on Commerce's remand results in a case on the CVD investigation into forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany, Judge Claire Kelly also remanded the agency's finding of de jure specificity for Germany's KAV program. The judge said Commerce failed to explain how the criteria for the program are economic in nature and horizontal in application.

While the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA), an alternative to the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body, may work for the nations that want an appellate level of review of WTO panel decisions, it doesn't necessarily make sense for U.S. purposes, said Jamieson Greer, former chief of staff for the U.S. trade representative and partner at King & Spalding. Speaking at a May 8 Federalist Society event, Greer said that if the U.S. wanted another level of review at the WTO, the government would simply just start staffing up the AB again rather than pursue a solution under the MPIA.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Court of International Trade in a confidential opinion upheld parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's administrative review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. In a letter to litigants, Judge Richard Eaton gave the parties until May 12 to review the confidential information in the opinion and respond.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the government's motion for leave to correct parts of two statements it made in a now-concluded case on tobacco excise taxes for cigar wrappers. The U.S. said samples of the goods relied on in the case were taken from a specific entry when they were not, adding that it has identified the source of six of the nine samples considered by the court. While importer and appellant New Image Global never raised the source of the samples as a concern, the company filed two related complaints at the Court of International Trade alleging for the first time that the lab reports were false and unreliable (see 2210310062). As a result, the U.S. asked the court for leave to withdraw the two statements that inaccurately describe the entries "out of a deep commitment to transparency and candor" (see 2304240043). The court granted the motion without prejudice to further proceedings before CIT (New Image Global v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 19-2444).