Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pressed counsel for importer Blue Sky the Color of Imagination and the government during oral argument on Oct. 7 in the importer's customs classification suit on its notebooks with calendars. During the argument, Judges Alan Lourie, Raymond Chen and William Bryson grappled with whether the court is bound by its 2010 ruling in Mead v. U.S. and whether the goods are properly classified as calendars or diaries (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).

A World Trade Organization dispute panel on Oct. 2 found that the EU violated its WTO commitments in its antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings on stainless steel cold-rolled flat products from Indonesia. Specifically, the dispute panel rejected the European Commission's attempt to countervail Chinese transnational subsidies in the Indonesian steel sector.

The Commerce Department erred in using likely selling prices as facts otherwise available for antidumping duty respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's cost of production, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held on Oct. 6. Judges Alan Lourie, Timothy Dyk and Jimmie Reyna held that where there's a gap to fill on the record, "there must be a reasonable relationship between the selected facts otherwise available and the gap to be filled."

The Court of International Trade's ruling that a product is "imported" for duty drawback purposes when it's admitted into a foreign-trade zone and not when entered for domestic consumption would lead to a partial repeal of the FTZ Act, importer King Maker Marketing argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. King Maker said the trade court's decision would lead to "absurd and anomalous results," since it would require finding the clock for drawback claims to start before the right to make the claim accrues (King Maker Marketing v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1819).

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 1 sent back the Commerce Department's decision to deny antidumping duty respondent Ditar's request for a level-of-trade analysis in the AD investigation on shopping bags from Colombia.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 1 sent back the Commerce Department's finding that antidumping duty respondent Ditar correctly reported an individual transaction, dubbed "Transaction X," as a home market sale in the AD investigation on shopping bags from Colombia. Judge M. Miller Baker said on remand the agency must address whether Ditar had "actual" knowledge of whether Transaction X was destined for export "without importing evidence relevant only to" whether Ditar had "constructive" knowledge that the sale was for export.

The Commerce Department properly found that the South Korean government's full allotment of emissions permits under the Korean Emissions Trading System (K-ETS) was de facto specific, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Oct. 1.

The parties challenging tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act asked the Supreme Court to grant divided argument among the three groups of plaintiffs challenging the tariffs and to allow for 45 minutes of argument for each side. The three groups are five importers that filed suit at the Court of International Trade, 12 U.S. states that filed suit at CIT, and two importers that filed their case at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Donald J. Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, U.S. 25-250) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, U.S. 24-1287).

The Commerce Department said its ACCESS system isn't receiving regular updates due to the federal government shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, the start of the 2026 fiscal year. All pending submissions in proceedings before the agency should be submitted by their current due date, the agency said.

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