The Commerce Department said on remand at the Court of International Trade that importer Hardware Resources' edge-glued wood boards are wood mouldings and millwork products subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on that product from China (Hardware Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00150).

CBP is not entitled to Customs Passenger Processing Fees paid by individual passengers that cancel their tickets and never actually travel to the U.S., the Court of International Trade held on March 18. Siding with Southwest Airlines, Judge Gary Katzmann said that the statute, 19 U.S.C. 58c(a), doesn't allow CBP to collect the fees where the customer doesn't travel to the U.S. and no customs inspection services are performed.

Dutch mushroom exporter Prochamp said March 14 that Germany had been the right third-country comparison market in an antidumping duty investigation of its products, echoing the argument raised by the U.S. (see 2503030073) (Giorgio Foods v. United States, CIT # 23-00133).

Citing a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the U.S. sought March 14 to have dismissed exporter J.D. Irving’s case regarding some of its entries’ cash deposit rate (J.D. Irving v. U.S., CIT #22-00256).

The U.S. defended the expert testimony of its expert witness, Dr. Radhakrishnaiah Parachuru, in importer Viecura's customs suit on the classification of its pants designed to assist with incontinence. Filing a brief in opposition to Viecura's challenge to Parachuru's testimony on March 14, the government said the doctor has "specific and relevant experience with incontinence pants design" and based his testimony on reliable methodologies (Viecura v. United States, CIT # 21-00154).

The Court of International Trade on March 13 severed exporter Fontaine's case against the expedited countervailing duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada from the consolidated action on the review. Judge Mark Barnett sustained the review "with respect to Fontaine," ordering that the relevant entries be liquidated in line with the court's decision. In January, Barnett sustained the Commerce Department's use of Fontaine's FY 2015 tax returns to calculate the amount of the tax benefits received by the company (see 2501290040). The remaining issues in the case are unrelated to Fontaine (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, CIT # 19-00122).

Exporter Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret will appeal a recent decision at the Court of International Trade, which held that the Commerce Department reasonably used Kaptan's invoice date as the date of sale in the 2021-22 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete rebar from Turkey (see 2501150021). In the decision, the court also upheld Commerce's differences-in-merchandise adjustment, finding that the adjustment wasn't distortive in the way that it controlled for inflation (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT # 24-00018).

A State Department notice declaring that all agency efforts to control international trade now constitute a "foreign affairs function" of the U.S. under the Administrative Procedure Act will ultimately be subject to the discretion of the courts, trade lawyers told us.

Importer Houston Shutters defended its Section 1581(i) case at the Court of International Trade against the Commerce Department's failure to open a changed circumstances review of antidumping and countervailing duty determinations on wood moldings and millwork products from China. Filing a reply brief on March 12, Houston Shutters said jurisdiction doesn't require it to challenge Commerce's investigations, adding that Commerce itself uses the reviews to consider information that wasn't present during the investigation (Houston Shutters v. U.S., CIT # 24-00193).

The Commerce Department excluded seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources Corp. from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China on remand at the Court of International Trade. The agency said, under protest, that the seven brick types had an "above-zero quantity of alumina and were based on testing procedures which properly determined the alumina content at the time of importation" (Fedmet Resources Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00117).