The Court of International Trade dismissed a case from steel importers Voestalpine USA Corp. and Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel requesting reliquidation of two steel entries exclusive of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, in an Aug. 26 order. Chief Judge Mark Barnett said that while the case appropriately sought jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) since it challenged a denied exclusion request from the Commerce Department, the plaintiffs received all the relief available to them from Commerce -- their exclusion request was eventually granted, so that aspect of the case was moot. But to secure a refund, they should have filed a protest to seek CBP reliquidation of the relevant entries, and they did not, Barnett said.

The Court of International Trade remanded two Commerce Department scope rulings on an antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China in separate challenges. In one case, brought by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, Judge Timothy Stanceu said that Commerce misinterpreted evidence from the International Trade Commission on whether Crane's flanges are subject to the order. In the other case, brought by Star Pipe Products, Stanceu said that Commerce did not consider all the relevant evidence when finding that Star Pipe's flanges are covered by AD duties.

The Commerce Department did not violate the law when it included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited (PESL) in an antidumping investigation, the Court of International Trade said in an Aug. 25 order. Judge Leo Gordon said that there is nothing in the statute that requires Commerce to perform a bona fide sales analysis on paid U.S. sample sales during an investigation. "It should go without saying that, without a legal requirement that Commerce perform such an analysis, there is no basis for the court to issue an affirmative injunction that Commerce must conduct a bona fide sales analysis on PESL’s paid U.S. sample sales," the judge said.

The Court of International Trade ruled that Logitech's webcams and ConferenceCams shall be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8517, receiving duty-free treatment. In an Aug. 24 ruling, Judge Leo Gordon applied a use analysis to the webcams and ConferenceCams to determine if they belonged under subheading 8517, as Logitech suggested, or subheading 8525, dutiable at 2.1%, as the government suggested. Ultimately finding that the goods fit under both headings, Gordon went with 8517 as the proper classification for the products since it describes them "with a greater degree of accuracy and certainty."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with the Court of International Trade's rejection of CBP regulations that limit the amount of drawback that can be claimed on excise taxes, the CAFC said in a ruling. "We conclude that the expansive definition in the Rule, which extends drawback to situations in which tax is never paid or determined, conflicts with the unambiguous text of the statute," said the CAFC.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty case over the question of whether to "collapse" affiliate entities since they were owned by members of the "same, albeit estranged, family." In an Aug. 20 opinion, Judge Gary Katzmann held that Commerce properly reversed its original determination that the three companies were affiliated, since they did not clear the three requirements for collapsing given entities. In doing so, Commerce dropped its application of adverse facts available and gave Echjay Forgings Private Limited a 4.58% dumping margin.

The Court of International Trade denied Otter Products' motion for leave to file a reply and to enforce judgment as part of a customs case in an Aug. 18 opinion. OtterBox sought refunds on a prior disclosure it made on imports of smartphone covers since it prevailed in another CIT case on entries of the same product. The court ruled against OtterBox in this instance, citing a lack of jurisdiction. “Because the entries associated with the Prior Disclosure were not part of the Subject Protest, they are not part of this action and the Court does not have jurisdiction to order the relief OtterBox requests,” the opinion said.

The Court of International Trade vacated a Commerce Department regulation establishing expedited reviews for countervailing duty investigations in an Aug. 18 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett, after issuing three other opinions in the case, upheld Commerce's finding that it couldn't find any alternative statutory basis on which to find that the regulation can exist. Barnett also nixed the expedited CVD reviews provided to some Canadian companies relating to the CVD order on certain softwood lumber from Canada. In doing so, Barnett ruled that companies deemed excluded from the CVD order due to the expedited reviews shall prospectively be reinstated as subject to it. Commerce shall also impose a cash deposit requirement based on the all-others rate from the investigation or the company-specific rate determined in the most recently completed administrative review in which the company was reviewed, Barnett said.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results in a countervailing duty administrative review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey in an Aug. 18 opinion. Judge Gary Katzmann ruled against plaintiff Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi's motion for judgment, holding that Commerce permissibly rejected United Nations Comtrade and Eurostat data on natural gas imports from Russia in calculating a "tier-two benchmark" in its sales-below-cost analysis of Habas' natural gas prices. Katzmann also held that Commerce reasonably refused to use the Eurostat natural gas import data from Norway, Alberia, Libya and Ukraine in its "tier-three benchmark" calculations, while properly relying on IEA data for the tier-three calculations.

The Court of International Trade sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping investigation into carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany in two opinions. Judge Leo Gordon again remanded Commerce's application of the major input rule, treatment of certain general and administrative expenses and the application of adverse facts available. The judge did, however, sustain Commerce's differential pricing analysis and adjustment of interest expense to include a portion of respondent AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke's parent holding company's interest expense.