The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 22 opinion denied plaintiff Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret's motion to stay its countervailing duty review challenge pending resolution of a case over the previous review of the same CVD order. Judge Gary Katzmann said the stay would not promote judicial economy since the pending cases are before CIT and not the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and that Kaptan has not put forth any "pressing need" for a stay. The judge commented on the lack of any "talismanic formula" for finding when a stay motion should be granted and the need to weigh the various conditions at play.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S.'s reversal of its position by refusing to allow plaintiff Oman Fasteners to post bond for its potential Section 232 steel and aluminum liability "smacks of outright bad faith," Oman Fasteners argued in a Sept. 20 emergency motion to compel at the Court of International Trade. The plaintiff argued that the court should compel the U.S. to comply with an order it issued in April, otherwise the U.S. could "artificially inflate" the exporter's dumping margin in an ongoing antidumping proceeding, "permanently costing Oman Fasteners millions of dollars" (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT #20-00037).
The Commerce Department did not properly explain why it was appropriate to inflate a Mexican labor wage rate using Brazilian data in an antidumping duty investigation, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 13 opinion, made public Sept. 21. Commerce requested a voluntary remand in the case to further explain its decision, since it admitted to the court that it did not explain this position. Judge M. Miller Baker also sent the case back so the agency can identify the evidence in the record that supports granting Guangzhou Ulix Industrial & Trading Co. a separate rate.
The U.S. cannot seize or forfeit imports that are federally deemed "drug paraphernalia" but whose delivery, possession and manufacture were made legal at the state level, the Court of International Trade ruled Sept. 21. Judge Gary Katzmann found Washington state's move to make the marijuana-related drug paraphernalia legal allows interested parties to import the paraphernalia under the federal exemption laid out in the Controlled Substances Act.
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 20 order consolidated four cases contesting the Commerce Department's final results in the ninth administrative review of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. The four cases were brought by lead plaintiffs Zhejiang Dadongwu Greenhome Wood, Evolutions Flooring, Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. and Fine Furniture (Shanghai). The cases were consolidated under the lead action brought by Baroque Timber.
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 20 paperless order directed the U.S. to respond to an emergency motion from plaintiff Oman Fasteners in a suit challenging the validity of certain Section 232 steel and aluminum duties to comply with the court's most recent order. In April, the trade court ordered Oman Fasteners to make duty deposits for potential Section 232 steel and aluminum duty liability on all entries affected by its case (see 2204150053). The plaintiff previously requested that the court establish an escrow account throughout the stay period pending an appeal of the court's decision. A three-judge panel at the court was not convinced that setting up an escrow account is better than depositing estimated Section 232 duties for affected entries. With five months having gone by since the order, Oman Fasteners filed the confidential emergency motion to compel the U.S. to comply with the order. The court directed the U.S. to respond to the motion (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT #20-00037).
CBP did not rely on "disallowed hearsay" when finding that Skyview Cabinet evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on wooden cabinets and vanities and components thereof from China, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 19 reply brief. Responding to Skyview's arguments that CBP improperly relied on an affidavit and business confidential statements made by a corporate investigator, the government said that the importer has put forth no evidence questioning the truthfulness and credibility of the evidence and that the affidavits are not irrelevant to the evasion finding. CBP also did not solely rely on the information in the affidavit alone, the brief said (Skyview Cabinet USA v. United States, CIT #22-00080).
The U.S. was wrong to argue that the Commerce Department does not need to satisfy any criteria when refusing to start a successor-in-interest changed circumstances review, plaintiff GreenFirst Forest Products argued in a Sept. 19 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The government ignored that both Commerce and the trade court have recognized the agency's practice of looking at whether the agency individually calculated the former company's subsidy rate to deny the successor-in-interest CCR, the plaintiff said (GreenFirst Forest v. U.S., CIT #22-00097).
The Court of International Trade in a Sept. 20 order denied a motion from John Liu and GL Paper Distribution, defendants in a Section 592 penalty case, to strike a portion of the complaint. Liu moved to toss elements of the complaint he deemed to not be relevant to the imports at issue. Judge Jane Restani ruled that striking these parts of the complaint would be "premature," since the matter of relevancy is a "question of evidence" and not meant to be subject to a motion to strike.