Antidumping duty petitioner Catfish Farmers of America dropped two cases at the Court of International Trade concerning the surrogate information used in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 reviews of the AD order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The petitioner said that in light of the trade court's recent decision sustaining the Commerce Department's choice of India as a surrogate over Indonesia in a previous review of the same AD order (see 2503100059), it's dismissing its cases on the later two reviews. The petitioner said it's dropping the cases to conserve resources "while continuing to pursue issues relevant to surrogate country and value selection in ongoing and future administrative reviews" (Catfish Farmers of America v. United States, CIT #s 21-00380, 22-00125).
The Commerce Department has let respondents "game the system" and avoid countervailing duty liability for an otherwise countervailable program "simply by requesting a 'verification' after the fact from a willing foreign government," petitioner Titan Tire Corp. argued in a March 28 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Titan Tire said this system "creates a loophole that threatens to eviscerate the regulation through significant potential gamesmanship" (Titan Tire Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00233).
The Commerce Department permissibly said that backboards are veneers for purposes of identifying a benefit provided to countervailing duty respondents regarding the provision of veneers for less than adequate remuneration, the Court of International Trade held on March 27. Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce "explained adequately that the plain language of the Order’s scope defines backboard as a type of veneer."
Trade lawyer Iain Sandford has joined Foley Hoag in the Paris office of the firm's international litigation and arbitration practice, where he will work on issues related to the World Trade Organization and trade law. Sandford, a former legal officer under the WTO Secretariat and diplomat for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, joins Foley Hoag from Sidley Austin.
DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 26 looking to collect $47 million in proceeds from the sale of nearly "one million barrels of Iranian petroleum," claiming the money is property of, or "affording a person a source of influence over," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its Qods Force, DOJ announced.
The International Trade Commission's "practice of automatically redacting questionnaire responses is unlawful," the Court of International Trade held on March 27. Judge Stephen Vaden held that the practice isn't in line with "statute, regulation, precedent, and common sense."
The World Trade Organization members adopted a decision on the transparency of tariff rate quotas and completed the third triennial review of the Nairobi Decision on Export Competition during the March 24-25 meeting of the Committee on Agriculture. The Nairobi Decision review included a review report and a "decision on comprehensive export competition notification requirements and formats," which will streamline the notification requirements and integrate the export competition questionnaire from the Nairobi Decision, the WTO said. The decision adopted regarding TRQ administration says that members agreed to use a "modified format" for making notifications and that members with TRQ commitments should make a one-off notification with key information and subsequent notifications based on any changes to their TRQs.
The Council of the EU on March 26 appointed 13 judges to the EU General Court. Two of the judges, Francesco Bestagno of Italy and Tanja Pavelin of Croatia, have been appointed to their first terms, while nine others saw their terms renewed.
California-based importer Evolutions Flooring and its owners, Mengya Lin and Jin Qian, agreed to settle claims they violated the False Claims Act by "knowingly and improperly evading customs duties" on multilayered wood flooring from China, DOJ announced. DOJ said the company and its owners will pay $8.1 million to settle the case, noting that whistleblower Urban Global will receive around $1.2 million of the proceeds.
The Court of International Trade on March 26 denied importer Eteros Technologies USA an expedited briefing schedule in its case alleging that CBP retaliated against the company's executives after the importer received a favorable ruling at the trade court. Judge Gary Katzmann said Eteros hasn't shown that "good cause" warrants a speedy resolution of the case.