Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Court of Federal Appeals Trade activity
Tire exporter Pirelli Tyre told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the Commerce Department improperly applied its own legal framework for assessing whether the company rebutted the presumption of Chinese state control in the third review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. Filing a reply brief on Feb. 9, Pirelli said the agency ignored the policy's explicit directive to link all four of the factors concerning de facto foreign state control to a company's "export activities" (Pirelli Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2266).
The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 8 opinion made public Feb. 13 remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on thermal paper from Germany. Judge Gary Katzmann sustained Commerce's inclusion of exporter Koehler Paper's "Blue4est" paper product within the scope of the investigation, its coding of the dynamic sensitivity product characteristic and its application of price adjustments for some home market rebates.
The statutory basis for the U.S. trade representative's lists 3 and 4A tariffs -- Section 307 of the Trade Act of 1930 -- only allows for a "modification" of existing duties and not a "radical and unprecedented seven-fold escalation launching an unbounded trade war with China," appellants in the massive lawsuit challenging the Section 301 tariffs on China told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 12 (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Feb. 12 dismissed a host of claims from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman against three of her colleagues for their investigation on Newman's fitness to continue serving on the court. Judge Christopher Cooper also rejected Newman's bid for an injunction against the CAFC Judicial Council's one-year ban on Newman hearing new cases at the court (see 2309200024) (Hon. Pauline Newman v. Hon. Kimbelry Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 12 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to use a simple average of standard deviations in the denominator of the Cohen's d test in detecting "masked" dumping as part of the antidumping investigation on steel nails from Taiwan. Despite a pair of decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejecting the use of simple averages in this case, Judge Claire Kelly said she could find no fault with the logic Commerce employed.
While the U.S. remained neutral, a steel nail exporter on Feb. 8 called “moot” a petitioner’s motion to stay one antidumping duty appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit until the petitioner’s other interlocutory appeal had been heard (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1350).
DOJ attorney Robert Kiepura replaced Joshua Kurland as principal counsel in a case on the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on wind towers from Canada. The court approved the change in a Feb. 8 order (Quebec v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1807).
The U.S. Judicial Council's Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability's recent report sustaining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's one-year suspension of Judge Pauline Newman didn't evaluate her constitutional claims, leaving that to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Newman told the district court (Pauline Newman v. Kimberly Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).
The U.S. told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to "refuse to reopen" the issue of exporter Double Coin's eligibility for a separate antidumping duty rate in a suit returned to the appellate court after the company failed to raise the issue on its first visit to the Federal Circuit (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2391).