The Commerce Department failed in its obligation to calculate an accurate rate for a Kazakh exporter in a countervailing duty investigation when it unjustifiably rejected the exporter's questionnaire response, despite the response being only two hours late, the exporter, Tau-Ken Temir, said in the opening brief of its appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Tau-Ken Temir v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2204).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is "unlikely" to revisit its 2004 decision finding that False Claims Act qui tam cases involving customs duty avoidance belong at the Court of International Trade, law firm Morgan Lewis said in a Feb. 23 blog post. Overturning the decision would require an en banc ruling from the court, something that does not seem probable given that it is a whistleblower action in which the government hasn't intervened, the post said.

The Court of International Trade should grant the government's motion to reconsider its decision to send back the Commerce Department's use of a transaction-specific margin for an adverse facts available rate it assigned to an antidumping duty respondent, the American Manufacturers of Multilayered Wood Flooring (AMMWF) argued in a Feb. 27 response (Fusong Jinlong Wooden Group v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00144).

The Commerce Department unlawfully failed to adjust non-selected companies' cash deposit and assessment rates to account for export subsidy offsets in an antidumping duty review, an association of Indian producers and exports of quartz surface products said in a Feb. 27 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Federation of Indian Quartz Surface Industry v. U.S., CIT # 23-00026).

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative erred when it decided not to reinstate a Section 301 tariff exclusion on water coolers even though the only party in opposition to the exclusion subsequently withdrew its comments, DS Services of America said in its Feb. 27 filing on the remand results at the Court of International Trade (DS Services of America v. United States, CIT # 22-00157).

The Court of International Trade’s recent tariff classification decision on Cyber Power’s uninterruptible power supplies “may be a meaningful reset of the law of substantial transformation,” moving the analysis back to a comparison between parts and finished components after a period of focus on essence or critical components, customs lawyer Larry Friedman said in a Feb. 27 blog post.

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The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 27 decision denied importer Crown Cork & Seal USA's bid to dismiss fraud and gross negligence claims in a customs penalty case. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that, contrary to Crown Cork's characterization, the fraud claim is sufficiently specific and both claims clear the notice requirements of Rule 8 as set in the Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal cases.

The Court of International Trade rejected the Commerce Department's imposition of a total adverse facts available rate of 154.33% on antidumping duty respondent Oman Fasteners as the result of one 16-minutes-late submission, in a Feb. 15 opinion made public Feb. 27. Judge M. Miller Baker said the lawsuit was "not a close case," blasting Commerce's inadequate explanation for why one late submission due to a filing difficulty was enough to conclude that Oman Fasteners failed to cooperate to the best of its ability or why the company deserved the punitive rate.

Meyer Corporation will appeal a Court of International Trade decision (see 2302090053) denying the use of first sale on Meyer's cookware imports, the company said in a notice. The case concerns first sale treatment of sets of imported pots and pans from a Thai producer and Chinese middleman related to Meyer (Meyer Corporation v. United States, CIT # 13-00154).