The Court of International Trade in a March 21 opinion made public March 29 upheld parts and sent back parts of the Commerce Department's final results in the first administrative review of the countervailing duty order on aluminum foil from China. Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce properly rejected a benchmark submission from the respondents, led by Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co., and legally calculated the benchmark for the primary aluminum program. Reif remanded the case on the grounds that the agency did not properly explain its decision to pick the Trade Data Monitor data source to calculate the aluminum plate/sheet program benchmark or its selection of data to calculate the benchmark for the land program.

Antidumping petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for an expedited briefing schedule in a case on the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available due to a 16-minute late submission (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).

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CBP’s interpretation of the drawback statute and programming of its ACE Drawback Module led to an "absurd" rejection of substitution unused merchandise drawback eligibility for an importer of civil aviation equipment that disregards the basic structure of the tariff schedule, Spirit Aerosystems said in a March 24 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade (Spirit Aerosystems v. U.S., CIT # 20-00094).

Congress intended for subsidies given to "disparate processed agricultural products" to be countervailable under countervailing duty laws, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Ripe Olives argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Responding to arguments from three Spanish olive exporters against the Commerce Department's "substantially dependent finding" in the Spanish olives CVD investigation, the coalition said that Commerce "responsibly interpreted the statutory language broadly" and in line with statutory intent (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1162).

The Court of International Trade on March 29 dismissed a lawsuit from cellphone case-maker Otter Products seeking interest on customs duty overpayments, finding it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Judge Claire Kelly held that the Administrative Procedure Act waiver of sovereign immunity applies only to interest on deposits that are linked with liquidated entries. As a result, there is no specific wavier of immunity related to Otter's claim for interest for its overpayments on tendered prior disclosures "under the no-interest rule," Kelly said.

Court of International Trade Senior Judge Kenton Musgrave died in his home state of Florida on March 14, the court announced. He was 95. President Ronald Reagan appointed Musgrave to the trade court in 1987, and he was in active service for 10 years; he was given senior status in 1997. Musgrave's previous positions included assistant general counsel for Lockheed Aircraft and Lockheed International and vice president-general counsel for Mattel. He is survived by his daughter, Ruth Musgrave Warren, and her two children.

No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

The Court of International Trade did not direct the Commerce Department to account for compliance costs incurred by countervailing duty respondent BGH Edelstahl Siegen in the agency's subsidy calculations, the U.S. argued in defense of its decision not to consider BGH's costs of compliance with Germany's Electricity Tax Act and Energy Act Act (BGH Edelstahl Siegen v. U.S., CIT # 21-00080).

The statute of limitations for collection of duties under a bond expires six years after the relevant entries are liquidated, surety Aegis Security Insurance Co. said in its response to a customs penalty complaint from the government. Aegis disputed the U.S. claim that the calculation of delinquency runs from the billing of the subject entry (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT # 22-00327).