The Court of International Trade on Nov. 25 flipped its decision on the classification of Honeywell's precut, radial, chordal and web fabric pieces used in airplane brakes, finding on reconsideration that they are classifiable as fabrics under subheading 6307.90.98. Previously, Judge Mark Barnett had ruled the segments were "parts of an aircraft" under duty-free subheading 8803.20.00, but Barnett now found that, while the fabric pieces are finished parts of needled preforms, those preforms aren't finished parts, or blanks, of final brake discs. In doing so, he defined a "blank" as an article that undergoes finishing operations and not a substantial transformation.

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 26 found provisions of CBP's Enforce and Protect Act regulations violate importers' due process rights. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said a provision which requires notice to the importer no later than five business days after day 90 of an EAPA investigation doesn't give the importer a "procedural due process right to notice" and a "meaningful opportunity to be heard" prior to the imposition of interim measures. She also found CBP erred in taking more than 15 days to open an investigation after receiving an allegation. Instead of vacating the investigation, however, the judge ordered CBP to "rescind the interim and final enforcement measures imposed on quartz countertop products imported by" Superior water Sept. 29, 2022, the date on which the court said CBP was required to start its investigation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 19 dismissed Nebraska man Byungmin Chae's second case challenging the results of his April 2018 customs broker license exam. Chae previously litigated the results of the exam in an earlier case before the Court of International Trade and CAFC, ultimately coming just one correctly answered question shy of a passing grade. After the Supreme Court declined to take up his first case, Chae filed another lawsuit to challenge one question on the test. The Federal Circuit dismissed the second lawsuit, finding that Chae should have brought any additional claims against the question in his first case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 17 sustained the Commerce Department's decision not to attribute subsidies received by Nur, an affiliated input supplier of countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir, to Kaptan in the 2018 CVD review of Turkish rebar. Juges Raymond Chen, Richard Linn and Todd Hughes held that the Court of International Trade didn't abuse its discretion in initially remanding the review. They said that Commerce properly found that the "unprocessed steel scrap" provided by Nur "was a common input used in a variety of products and industries" and that "Nur’s business activities were not dedicated almost exclusively to the production of a higher value-added product."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 17 held that five types of medical foods imported by Nutricia North America are properly classified as "medicaments" under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 3004 and not as "food preparations" under heading 2106. Reversing the Court of International Trade's decision, Judges Sharon Prost, Richard Taranto and Leonard Stark found that Nutricia's goods plainly fall within heading 3004, particularly due to the fact that they qualify as "medical foods" as defined by Congress and the FDA in implementing the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. Taranto, writing for the court, added that the entries aren't excluded from heading 3004 due to Chapter 30's note 1(a), which says Chapter 30 doesn't include foods or beverages "(such as dietetic, diabetic or fortified foods, food supplements, tonic beverages and mineral waters), other than nutritional preparations for intravenous administration."

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 granted the government's motion for default judgment in a customs penalty suit against importer Rago Tires, imposing a $14,108.87 civil penalty against the company. Judge Joseph Laroski found that Rago violated customs laws "by means of negligence" and not gross negligence, as the U.S. argued. The judge said that although the company's filing error, in which it failed to declare its goods were subject to antidumping and countervailing duties, was "material," the facts don't show "willful, wanton, or reckless misconduct."

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 29 sustained the Commerce Department's 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on strontium chromate from Austria. Judge Joseph Laroski rejected petitioner Lumimove's claims against Commerce's findings that respondent Habich wasn't affiliated with its North American sales agent and that normal value should be calculated using Habich's slaves to Mexico. Regarding the agency's affiliation finding, Laroski said that Lumimove's claims boiled down to: "Commerce should have asked Habich different questions." The judge rejected this assertion, finding that the agency "acted reasonably by consulting the relevant legal framework in structuring its inquiry into affiliation," adapting its questions to Lumimove's concerns, conducting a "robust verification" and "distilling the law and facts that informed its conclusion."

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 23 remanded the Commerce Department's use of antidumping respondent Toyo Kohan's shipment date as its date of sale for the company's U.S. sales in the 2022-23 review of the AD order on diffusion-annealed, nickel-plated flat-rolled steel products from Japan. Judge Jane Restani said Commerce's use of Toyo Kohan's shipment date lacked a "reasoned explanation" and wasn't supported by the record, since the billing documentation at the time of shipping is "virtually meaningless" because it doesn't necessarily show the "quantity or price in the purchase order or the final invoice." The judge said Commerce should consider the role an "agreed-to pricing formula" may play in its date of sale analysis, since where such a formula is present, "there may be a disconnect in the record data" for the date of sale and the sale price.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 22 rejected exporter BGH Edelstahl Siegen's claim that the Commerce Department improperly included various products from the company in its normal value calculation in the 2022 review of the antidumping duty order on forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany. Judge Mark Barnett said BGH improperly tried adding an end-use restriction to the order's scope in arguing that some of its products sold in the home market aren't within the scope of the order. The scope's language covering fluid end blocks, "which are typically used in the manufacture or service of hydraulic pumps," doesn't use clear enough language to impose an end-use restriction, Barnett said.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 20 sustained the Commerce Department's decision on remand to exclude importer Elysium Tiles' composite tile from the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on ceramic tile from China. After being told by the court to consider the (k)(2) scope factors, Commerce flipped its scope finding on Elysium's tile to exclude the company's products from the orders. Judge Jane Restani reviewed the agency's (k)(2) analysis and found that while for three of them, the products' ultimate uses, channels of trade and means of advertisement, favored including the composite tile in the orders' scope, these factors are outweighed by the differences in the products' physical characteristics and user expectations.