Colombian shopping bag exporter Ditar and domestic petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Shopping Bags each filed a motion for judgment in their respective cases challenging the results of the same antidumping duty investigation. Ditar, a mandatory respondent, argued the Commerce Department had been required to make a level-of-trade adjustment between its U.S. and home markets, while the Coalition alleged Ditar’s records were unreliable (Ditar v. United States, CIT # 24-00130; Coalition for Fair Trade in Shopping Bags v. United States, CIT # 24-00157).

The Court of International Trade ordered Jan. 27 the remand of a circumvention inquiry in which an exporter, Hoa Phat Steel Pipe, failed to meet a deadline but still submitted all requested information before the opening of the first business day following that deadline. CIT Judge Timothy Reif found the Commerce Department’s rejection of that information, and subsequent assignment of adverse facts available to the exporter, was an abuse of discretion, specifically noting that Commerce itself had twice extended the deadline for its own determination (Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00248).

The Commerce Department "effectuated Congress' intent" when it found that U.S. seafood seller Luscious Seafood is not a bona fide wholesaler of the domestic like product, petitioner Catfish Farmers of America said in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The petitioner said that while Congress didn't define the term "wholesaler" in the antidumping laws, the "overall text, structure, and purpose of the law do not reflect any intention to allow parties with merely tangential or fugitive wholesaling activity to force Commerce into action -- particularly for potentially manipulative ends" (Luscious Seafood v. United States, CIT # 24-00069).

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

Vehicle chassis importer -- and domestic producer -- Pitts Enterprises pushed back against the United States’ interpretation of “subassemblies” with respect to countervailing duty and antidumping duty orders on chassis and subassemblies from China (Pitts Enterprises, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00030).

The U.S. and importer Cozy Comfort Co. each filed proposed findings of fact and law earlier this month after a weeklong trial before the Court of International Trade on whether to classify Cozy Comfort's product, The Comfy, as a blanket or a pullover (Cozy Comfort Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00173).

Responding to opposition to its motion for judgment, steel importer CME Acquisitions said “judicial and administrative precedent” still support pulling forward prior calculated antidumping duty rates for non-selected respondents to a review when all selected respondents are hit with adverse facts available (CME Acquisitions v. United States, CIT # 24-00032).

The Commerce Department decided not to countervail benefits received by countervailing duty respondent Kaptan Demir from Turkey's Banking and Insurance and Transaction Tax exemptions on remand at the Court of International Trade. The agency said that while there was not enough information to find that the exemptions were de facto specific, it faulted its lack of time on remand to gather sufficient information (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 23-00131).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

In a complaint brought Jan. 21 in the Court of International Trade, exporter East Asia Aluminum Company alleged that a Commerce Department investigation failed to properly account for its scrap byproduct, which East Asia Aluminum continuously reintroduces back into production, which caused a chain of circumstances resulting in a far-too-late affirmative critical circumstances determination (East Asia Aluminum Company v. United States, CIT # 24-00255).