The Commerce Department has the authority to countervail currency undervaluation, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Oct. 25. Judge Timothy Reif found that nothing in the text of the countervailing duty statute, the statute's legislative history or legislative or administrative developments prohibit Commerce from imposing CVD due to a country's undervalued currency.
Turkish state-owned bank Halkbank is not shielded from "common-law foreign sovereign immunity" in the U.S. government's suit against the bank for sanctions evasion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said earlier this week, ruling that the U.S. may prosecute it on charges that it helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions (United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi, 2nd Cir. # 20-3499).
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. on its tin mill product entries. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence and in line with agency practice.
In remand results, the Commerce Department assigned four Mexican tomato exporters an adverse facts available dumping margin of 273.43% for a 1996 investigation that has been suspended for 22 years. The department, which resumed its inquiry in 2019, said that those exporters -- one of whom it couldn't even track down -- had failed to participate in verification to the best of their ability (Bioparques de Occidente v. U.S., CIT # 19-00204).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 ruled that steel tubing with insulating material imported by Shamrock Building Materials is classifiable as steel tubes of heading 7306, rather than insulated conduit of heading 8547, subjecting the steel tubing to 25% Section 232 tariffs.
NEW YORK -- Three judges at the Court of International Trade offered tips to practitioners arguing before the court during an event at the court's judicial conference earlier this month. Judges Jennifer Choe-Groves, Claire Kelly and Gary Katzmann discussed tips for brief writing, oral argument and filing extension requests, laying out personal preferences and common areas where counsel goes wrong.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department released its remand results Oct. 18 in a case regarding the antidumping duty review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, maintaining its earlier determinations but providing more detailed analyses for each (Catfish Farmers of America, et al. v. United States, CIT # 22-00125).
The Commerce Department failed to explain its use of an inter-quarter comparison in a differential pricing analysis but not in a margin calculation, despite being told to do so by the Court of International Trade in a remand order, exporters argued Oct. 18 (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 23-00113).
U.S. aerospace firm RTX tapped senior counsel Lara Covington to head the company’s compliance with the deferred prosecution agreements announced last week with DOJ and the SEC, Covington announced on LinkedIn. Covington’s official title will be the executive director of the RTX DPA Compliance Program Office, where she will help “ensure the company successfully meets its obligations” to both agencies, she wrote in her bio. RTX will pay close to $1 billion and agreed to a range of compliance commitments to resolve allegations that it committed violations of defense export control regulations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and more (see 2410160058).