The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 sustained CBP's decision on remand to find that importer Zinus didn't evade the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China. The agency made the decision after incorporating a scope ruling from the Commerce Department finding that seven models of metal and wood platform beds imported by Zinus aren't covered by the AD order (see 2501130011) (Zinus v. United States, CIT # 23-00272).
Exporters PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia and PT Grantec Jaya Indonesia -- two companies collapsed into one for antidumping duty procedural purposes -- took to the Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 to contest the 2022-23 review of the AD order on mattresses from Indonesia. Ecos/Grantec challenged the Commerce Department's determination to adjust three expense fields to include "overpaid allowances," along with the agency's adjustments to the companies' total cost of manufacturing under the "transactions disregarded" provision of U.S. antidumping law (PT Ecos Jaya Indonesia v. United States, CIT # 24-00238).
The Commerce Department's exceeded its statutory authority when it revoked an antidumping duty order on the grounds that it never received a notice of intent to participate from an interested domestic party in a sunset review, petitioner Archroma U.S. argued. Filing a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Archroma said Commerce's authority to ensure the "integrity of its procedures" doesn't allow it to "adopt measures exceeding its statutory authority" (Archroma U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2159).
The Commerce Department doesn't fail to act when it denies a Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion request, the Court of International Trade held. Instead, the denial is a "decision" and "not an action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed," Judge Stephen Vaden said, dismissing a host of claims from importer Prysmian Cables and Systems USA against Commerce's rejection of its exclusion requests.
The EU has requested consultations at the World Trade Organization as the first step in contesting Chinese practices pertaining to intellectual property rights, the European Commission announced on Jan. 19. The commission alleged that China has "empowered its courts to set binding worldwide royalty rates for EU standard essential patents, without the consent of the patent owner."
Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden earlier this month said he is working on two decisions to be issued simultaneously in a case on the International Trade Commission's affirmative injury determination on phosphate fertilizers. In a text-only order, the judge said one opinion will deal with the merits of the appeal, while the other will address the court's issue with the commission's treatment of confidential information (OCP v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 21-00219).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in the expedited countervailing duty review on softwood lumber products from Canada, in a confidential decision. Judge Mark Barnett sent the review back for Commerce to "reconsider or further explain its subsidy calculations with respect to" the consolidated entity of D&G/Portbec. The court found for the government on the remaining issues (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 19-00122).
Chinese manufacturer Camel Group Co. took to the Court of International Trade last week to contest its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, arguing that the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force "utterly disregarded, ignored and trampled" its due process rights in a "flawed and poorly executed process." The company said FLETF illicitly conducted the process in the shadows, refusing to offer it access to any of the evidence used against the company, and that the decision to deny its petition to be removed from the list wasn't backed by substantial evidence (Camel Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).