The Court of International Trade on March 21 sustained the Commerce Department's decision not to investigate the provision of off-peak electricity for less than adequate remuneration in South Korea after three remands before the trade court. Judge Mark Barnett said Commerce reasonably laid out the evidence petitioner Nucor Corp. should have provided to "justify a new subsidy investigation of this subset of the broader electricity pricing scheme."

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky declared a mistrial in a case against defense contractor Quadrant Magnetics for violating export controls after the government sent the company thousands of pages of documents relevant to the case immediately prior to and during the company's trial (United States v. Quadrant Magnetics, W.D. Ky. # 3:22-00088).

Importer Under the Weather defended its motion for leave to amend its complaint in a customs case, arguing that the government's grounds for opposition to the motion, untimeliness and prejudice, don't defeat it. The importer said any delay the Court of International Trade might find due to the motion isn't "undue" and that the amendment doesn't prejudice the U.S., since the amendment would add a claim based on the "same transactions and events as the original complaint" (Under the Weather v. United States, CIT # 21-00211).

In another missed deadline case (see 2501070084, 2409100065) and 2501270069), Chinese steel rack exporter Nanjing Dongsheng Shelf Manufacturing said again March 17 that the Commerce Department shouldn’t have hit it with adverse facts available for assuming a deadline extension offered to most separate rate review respondents had also been granted to it (Nanjing Dongsheng Shelf Manufacturing Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00085).

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The Commerce Department said on remand at the Court of International Trade that importer Hardware Resources' edge-glued wood boards are wood mouldings and millwork products subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on that product from China (Hardware Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00150).

CBP is not entitled to Customs Passenger Processing Fees paid by individual passengers that cancel their tickets and never actually travel to the U.S., the Court of International Trade held on March 18. Siding with Southwest Airlines, Judge Gary Katzmann said that the statute, 19 U.S.C. 58c(a), doesn't allow CBP to collect the fees where the customer doesn't travel to the U.S. and no customs inspection services are performed.

Citing a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the U.S. sought March 14 to have dismissed exporter J.D. Irving’s case regarding some of its entries’ cash deposit rate (J.D. Irving v. U.S., CIT #22-00256).

The U.S. defended the expert testimony of its expert witness, Dr. Radhakrishnaiah Parachuru, in importer Viecura's customs suit on the classification of its pants designed to assist with incontinence. Filing a brief in opposition to Viecura's challenge to Parachuru's testimony on March 14, the government said the doctor has "specific and relevant experience with incontinence pants design" and based his testimony on reliable methodologies (Viecura v. United States, CIT # 21-00154).

A State Department notice declaring that all agency efforts to control international trade now constitute a "foreign affairs function" of the U.S. under the Administrative Procedure Act will ultimately be subject to the discretion of the courts, trade lawyers told us.