Surety company American Home Assurance Co.'s (AHAC's) affirmative defense of laches requires it to prove that it suffered prejudice given the government's delay in commencing a legal action over uncollected antidumping duties. AHAC has failed to do so and thus cannot make its laches claims, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 28 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The surety company has failed to show either defense or economic prejudice in arguing that the case should be dismissed since it was filed beyond the statute of limitations to collect the duties under the bond, the U.S. said (United States v. American Home Assurance Company, CIT #20-00175).

The Court of International Trade should stay proceedings in a case challenging President Donald Trump's reversal of a tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels pending resolution of a similar matter, plaintiffs JinkoSolar (U.S.) Inc. and Jinko Solar (U.S.) Industries argued in an unopposed stay motion (JinkoSolar (U.S.) Inc. v. United States, CIT #22-00241). The case should be halted until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit settles Solar Energy Industries Association, et al. v. United States, the brief said. In that case, the trade court found that the statute did not allow further trade-restricting measures once a tariff exclusion had been put in place (see 2111160032).

The fact that the Commerce Department verified non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in two administrative proceedings speaks to the validity of its verification process, the U.S. said in a Sept. 28 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Asking the trade court to uphold its use of adverse facts available for countervailing duty respondents' failure to submit full questionnaire responses issued on remand over the EBCP, the government argued that the fact that it verified non-use administratively in other cases shows the need for the requested information (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co. v. United States, CIT #20-00110).

Exporter Jin Tiong Electrical Materials Manufacturer failed to timely submit a separate rate application by the applicable deadline, making it ineligible to rebut the presumption of Chinese government control and get a separate rate, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 28 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Jin Tiong is not absolved from having missed the deadline by a wrongly filed, then later rescinded, questionnaire sent to the exporter by the Commerce Department, the brief said (Repwire v. United States, CIT Consol. #22-00016).

The Court of International Trade should find that the Commerce Department's scope ruling pertaining to importer Fasteners for Retail, doing business as Siffron, was not legal, antidumping duty petitioner Magnum Magnetics argued in a Sept. 28 complaint. The scope ruling that excluded Siffron's goods from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on raw flexible magnets from China "is unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise not in accordance with law," the brief said. Commerce found that Siffron's plastic shelf dividers, consisting of a "raw flexible magnet that is bonded with an adhesive to the base of a plastic sheet that is generally T- or L-shaped," are excluded from the scope of the order (Magnum Magnetics v. United States, CIT #22-00254).

The Commerce Department cannot use one antidumping respondent's third-country sales to calculate another's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit since the second respondent has no means to review the underlying data to gauge its accuracy, plaintiff Hyundai Steel Company argued in a brief at the Court of International Trade. The record had many alternative sources for calculating these elements, including sources Commerce had used in the past for calculating CV profit, selling expenses and CEP profit, the brief said (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, CIT Consol. #22-00138).

The Commerce Department properly used adverse facts available after finding that antidumping duty respondent Kumar Industries failed to provide key information on its affiliation status, instead supplying conflicting reports on whether one of its partners received income from two unnamed companies, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 26 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Kumar's bid to explain the discrepancy between the conflicting information "was unpersuasive, and even if true, failed to fully address Commerce's concerns," the brief said (Kumar Industries v. United States, CIT #21-00622).

The Court of International Trade should uphold the Commerce Department's application of adverse facts available for China's Export Buyer's Credit Program after the trade court in a separate case accepted the agency's explanation of why missing information from the Chinese government was needed to verify non-use, countervailing duty petitioner American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance (AKCA) argued in comments on Commerce remand results Sept. 28 (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00110).

CBP need not allow exporter Oman Fasteners to continue to post bond instead of paying Section 232 steel and aluminum duties given the exporter's "longstanding history" of failing to honor the bonding arrangement, the U.S. said in a Sept. 28 brief at the Court of International Trade. Replying to Oman Fasteners' motion to compel the U.S. to honor a CIT order, the government argued that the plaintiff's claims are based on an "incomplete telling of the facts," and that Oman Fasteners is not entitled to the privilege of bonding, especially when it has violated the bonding arrangement via under-bonding (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT #20-00037).

The Court of International Trade in a pair of administrative orders extended both the preliminary injunction enjoining liquidation of unliquidated entries subject to the massive Section 301 litigation and the order telling the U.S. to refund duties should the Section 301 plaintiffs be successful in unassigned Section 301 challenges. In July 2021, the court temporarily suspended liquidation of the subject imports. Judge Mark Barnett extended this order via an administrative order to unassigned Section 301 cases.