No lawsuits have been filed recently at the Court of International Trade.

Exporter Kumho Tire (Vietnam) will appeal the Court of International Trade's decision sustaining the Commerce Department's decision to countervail Vietnamese currency undervaluation, according to an Oct. 21 notice of appeal. In August, the trade court upheld Commerce's finding that the currency undervaluation program was specific to the traded goods sector and thus countervailable in the countervailing duty investigation on passenger vehicle and light truck tires (see 2508220052). In an earlier decision, Judge Timothy Reif held that the agency had the authority to countervail currency undervaluation programs (see 2410280035). Kumho Tire now will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Kumho Tire (Vietnam) v. United States, CIT # 21-00397).

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 21 granted the government's motion for default judgment against importer E-Dong, U.S.A. for negligently failing to pay a federal excise tax on 20 entries of its "Korean distilled beverage soju." Judge Timothy Reif ordered E-Dong to pay $234,748.30 in unpaid federal excise tax along with pre- and post-judgment interest, which shall be calculated according to the relevant statutes.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 17 said that it will remain open despite the lapse in federal appropriations, adding that it will "continue all excepted activities" under the Anti-Deficiency Act and follow the Guide to Judiciary Policy.

The Commerce Department properly excluded importer Elysium Tiles' composite tile from the scope of the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on ceramic tile from China, the Court of International Trade held on Oct. 20. After instructing Commerce to consider the (k)(2) scope factors on remand, Judge Jane Restani sustained the agency's (k)(2) analysis as reasonable.

The International Trade Commission inadequately supported its decision not to exclude Amsted Rail from the injury investigation on freight rail couplers (FRCs) from China and Mexico, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public on Oct. 20. Judge Gary Katzmann held that the ITC didn't articulate a "rational connection" between Amsted's domestic production performance and the decision not to exclude Amsted, nor did it properly support its conclusion that Amsted's exclusion would "skew the data."

Court of International Trade Chief Judge Mark Barnett on Oct. 16 restricted electronic access to sealed documents in light of a "recent escalation in cyberattacks on the CM/ECF systems of federal courts." While sealed documents will continue to be filed in the CM/ECF system under "existing procedures," non-court users no longer can access or view these documents "by electronic means," the court said.

Importer FCMT on Oct. 16 dismissed three cases it brought at the Court of International Trade on CBP's appraisal of its apparel entries. The company filed a trio of complaints in May claiming that CBP failed to use the products' transaction value to appraise the merchandise and that CBP engaged in an "arbitrary and fictitious appraisement" of the merchandise (see 2506020020). FCMT said CBP appraised the Chinese merchandise using an "unknown method of appraisement" and merely increased the value of the merchandise by 148% (FCMT v. United States, CIT #s 21-00242, -00243, -00247).

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.

Importer Veregy Central argued that CBP improperly assessed hefty antidumping and countervailing duties on its solar cell imports from Thailand and Vietnam. In a complaint filed with the Court of International Trade on Oct. 17, Veregy said its goods were properly excluded from these duties due to President Joe Biden's duty pause on solar cells and modules from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia, since its imports were within the scope of the AD/CVD orders on Chinese solar cells and were consumed in the U.S. within 24 months of Biden's proclamation announcing the duty pause (Veregy Central v. United States, CIT # 25-00229).