A federal grand jury indicted Chinese national Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, for allegedly stealing trade secrets on artificial intelligence technology from Google, DOJ announced March 6. Ding, who was residing in California, purportedly transferred the trade secrets from "Google's network to his personal account while secretly affiliating himself with" Chinese companies in the AI industry.
Exporters Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. and Heze Huayi Chemical Co. filed a complaint on March 6 at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's consideration of Romania as a surrogate country in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on chlorinated isocyanurates from China (Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00026).
Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during a March 7 oral argument prodded various statutory interpretations of U.S. countervailing duty law as it pertains to finding whether demand for a good is "substantially dependent" on an upstream product for purposes of assigning countervailing duties. If substantial dependence is established, Commerce may attribute subsidies to a raw agricultural grower to a later stage producer.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 7 said that importer RKW Klerks' net wraps products, used in a machine to bale harvested crops, are not "parts" of harvesting machinery under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. Judges Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen and Tiffany Cunningham thus sided with CBP's classification of the products as "warp knit fabric," dutiable at 10% under HTS subheading 6005.39.00.
Cleveland-Cliffs steel company and the United Steelworkers (USW) labor union criticized U.S. Steel for failing to participate in an injury proceeding before the International Trade Commission on tin mill products from eight countries, which ended without the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties (see 2402060063). Cleveland-Cliffs and USW said the decision will lead to "the continuation of widespread unfair trade practices in the tin mill products market."
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
U.S. importer CME Acquisitions filed a complaint on March 6 at the Court of International Trade to contest the adverse facts available rate for the non-selected companies in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel sheet and strip in coils from Taiwan (CME Acquisitions v. United States, CIT # 24-00032).
International Rights Advocates said the Court of International Trade's recent decision in Ninestar Corp. v. U.S. "highlights the unreasonableness of CBP's delay in issuing a [withhold release order] against imports of cocoa products made with forced child labor in Cote d'Ivoire" (International Rights Advocates v. U.S., CIT # 23-00165).
The Court of International Trade last week ordered a hearing in a countervailing duty injury case on whether any party violated the court's rules regarding the bracketing of confidential information, suggesting that Rule 11 sanctions were on the table.
The Court of International Trade on March 6 sustained the Commerce Department's fourth remand results excluding Star Pipe Products' ductile iron flanges from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China.