Exporters led by Bio-Lab argued that the statute concerning surrogate value selection requires the Commerce Department to balance the importance of both economic and merchandise comparability rather than elevating one factor over the other. Filing a reply brief earlier this month at the Court of International Trade, Bio-Lab said that the court should find this to be the "best" reading of the statute, 19 U.S.C. 1677b(c), under the standard of review for ambiguous statutes established by the Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Bio-Lab v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 24-00024).

The Commerce Department reasonably said importer Cambridge Isotope Laboratories' enriched isotope compounds fit under the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on ammonium sulfate from China, the government argued in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The importer's 15N-enriched ammonium sulfate should have been included under the orders since the orders cover ammonium sulfate in all "physical forms," the government said (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories v. United States, CIT # 23-00080).

In response to a Georgia woman’s claim that the customs broker license exam “lacked sufficient information” on four questions, resulting in her failure to pass (see 2402160040), the U.S. said the woman was “entirely incorrect” regarding the questions’ ambiguity (Skeeter-Jo Stoute-Francois v. U.S., CIT # 24-00046).

Congress didn't give the Commerce Department authority to deviate from certain principles associated with anti-circumvention proceedings whenever it thinks the effectiveness of an AD/CVD measure has been threatened "by changes in manufacturing methods or supply chains," Solar cell exporter BYD (H.K.) Co. argued. Filing a reply brief last week with the Court of International Trade, BYD said Congress laid out only a "very limited number of specific manufacturing scenarios" that can be deemed "circumvention" (BYD (H.K.) Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00221).

Aluminum extrusions exporter Kingtom Aluminio, which operates out of the Dominican Republic, brought a complaint to the Court of International Trade on Dec. 23 to challenge CBP’s finding that the exporter had used forced labor (Kingtom Aluminio v. U.S., CIT # 24-00264).

The Court of International Trade on Dec. 26 upheld the Commerce Department's finding that Germany's Konzessionsabgabenverordnung (KAV) program, which exempts from a fee gas and power pipeline companies that sell electricity below a certain price, isn't de facto specific and so isn't countervailable. Judge Claire Kelly approved Commerce's use of facts otherwise available to find "the recipients were too numerous to render" the program de facto specific.

Importer Generac Power Systems brought on Dec. 20 two complaints to the Court of International Trade alleging CBP, in 2020, applied Section 301 tariffs to multiple of its entries despite excluding “substantially identical” merchandise (Generac Power Systems v. U.S., CIT # 20-03882, -03920).

Antidumping duty and countervailing duty petitioners the U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition and United Steelworkers argued that the International Trade Commission incorrectly concluded that aluminum extrusions from China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam didn't injure the U.S. industry (U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition v. United States, CIT # 24-00209).

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In a 18,700-word opposition brief, the U.S. attempted to derail a full-throttle attack brought by importers Wabtec Corp. and Strato against the International Trade Commission’s affirmative injury finding for freight rail couplers from China (Wabtec Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00157).