Exporter Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. responded to a host arguments from the U.S. regarding the Commerce Department's surrogate value calculations on a variety of activated carbon inputs as part of the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on activated carbon from China. In a reply brief filed last week at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Carbon Activated said the Court of International Trade erred in sustaining Commerce's surrogate financial ratios and surrogate values for carbonized metal, coal tar, hydrochloric acid, steam and ocean freight (Carbon Activated v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2413).

The U.S. announced April 26 that it's dropping fraud charges it brought in 2002 against Frontier Insurance Co., the surety for Lee-Hunt International, because Frontier no longer exists (U.S. v. Lee-Hunt International, Inc., CIT # 02-00816).

Importer Diamond Tools Technology will appeal the Court of International Trade's rejection of the company's request for attorney's fees in its challenge to CBP's determination that Diamond Tools Technology evaded the antidumping duty order on diamond sawblades from China. In March, Judge Timothy Reif said that since the case offered two issues of "first impression," the government's position was "substantially justified" for purposes of not awarding attorney's fees to the importer (Diamond Tools Technology v. United States, CIT # 20-00060).

Petitioners supporting a Commerce Department scope ruling argued that products’ end uses are not usually immediately considered for classification decisions and that industry support is only considered by the department during an initial antidumping or countervailing duty investigation, not during scope rulings or reviews (Hardware Resources, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00150).

The Supreme Court on April 29 turned down the chance to review a lawsuit on whether defunct Lebanese bank Jammal Trust Bank is immune from being sued for supporting Hezbollah as an "instrumentality of a foreign state" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The question posed by the writ of certiorari was whether a defendant's status as an "instrumentality of a foreign state" kicks in at the time of the filing of the complaint against the company, as the high court held in Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson, or at any time after the suit is filed, as found by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Jammal Trust Bank claimed it became an instrumentality of Lebanon after it was sued when it "entered state-supervised liquidation" (Bartlett v. Baasiri, Sup. Ct. # 23-568).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 29 issued its mandate in a case on the tariff classification of importer RKW Klerks' net wrap products, used in a machine to bale harvested crops. In March, the court said the products are not "parts" of harvesting machinery but in fact are "warp knit fabric," dutiable at 10% under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 6005.39.00 (see 2403070047). The court clarified that when an item is "consumable," such as "bullets in a gun, staples in a stapler, or film in a camera," it's not meant solely for use within the machine just because it's used exclusively by the machine. Here, the net wrap is similarly "never a part of the baling machine" since the output product is the net wrap packaged around a hay bale (RKW Klerks v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1210).

Importer Fanuc Robotics America and the U.S. said in an April 26 joint status report that they have reached a settlement agreement on one out of the two remaining robot models at issue in their 2012 classification case. Classification of the last model has been taking longer due to its age and the retirement of a national import specialist, they said, repeating what they shared in a previous update in November (see 2311030029) (Fanuc Robotics America v. U.S., CIT # 12-00052).

The U.S. and a domestic petitioner April 25 opposed an importer’s motion for judgment in a scope case, arguing that, because the product at issue was coated with a substance that promotes the adherence of ink and other artist materials, the importer’s canvas banner matisse was subject to an antidumping duty order on certain artist canvas from China (Printing Textiles, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 23-00192).

A Vietnamese exporter of light-walled rectangular pipe and tube filed a motion for judgment in another case -- this one over a circumvention inquiry -- contesting the rejection of its filing because it narrowly missed a deadline. The exporter called the decision “fundamentally unfair” (Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co., Ltd v. U.S., CIT # 23-00248).

The U.S. and petitioner Nucor Corp. defended the Commerce Department's use of partial adverse facts available against exporter Salzgitter Flachstahl in the antidumping duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Germany, in a pair of reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The government said the steel company said Commerce properly identified a gap in the record stemming from Salzgitter's failure to submit manufacturer information for 28,000 of its sales from an affiliated reseller, Salzgitter Mannesmann Stahlhandel (AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1219).