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."

The Court of International Trade denied March 27 a German thermal paper exporter’s and its affiliate’s motion to dismiss the case brought against it seeking payment of nearly $200 million in outstanding duties. In doing so, CIT Judge Gary Katzmann ruled that the trade court has personal jurisdiction over exporter Koehler Oberkirch and its affiliate, Koehler Paper.

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 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.

The Commerce Department recently set a new uniform policy regarding filing deadline extensions in antidumping duty and countervailing duty proceedings, shortening the time parties get for extensions to initial and supplemental questionnaires, according to an internal memo we obtained.

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The Court of International Trade granted three wildlife advocacy groups' voluntary dismissal of a case seeking an import ban on fisheries from nine countries after the groups reached a settlement with the U.S. government. Judge Gary Katzmann dropped the case, though he retained jurisdiction over the matter to oversee implementation of the settlement, at the parties' request.

Exporter Wabtec filed a supplemental brief March 21 claiming that an International Trade Commission investigation was trying to reach lost export sales on behalf of the domestic industry (Wabtec Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00160, -00161).

Wisconsin man Gary Barnes doesn't have constitutional or prudential standing to challenge the president's right to impose tariffs, the U.S. argued in a March 21 motion to dismiss at the Court of International Trade. The government claimed that Barnes failed to "allege a particularized and concrete injury to himself," and instead claimed that "unidentified American consumers more generally" will be harmed by the supposed constitutional violations the president commits when imposing tariffs (Gary Barnes v. United States, CIT # 25-00043).

The U.S. defended the Commerce Department's ability to require petitioners to file a notice of intent to participate in sunset reviews at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In a reply brief on March 21, the government said the "whole-text canon of statutory interpretation" doesn't support petitioner Archroma's challenge to this requirement, since the statute on which the company bases its claim "does not limit Commerce’s power to impose procedural requirements to be met before a domestic interested party may submit the information called for by the statute" (Archroma U.S. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2159).