Antidumping duty respondents Best Mattresses International Company's and Rose Lion Furniture Company's challenge of the Commerce Department's differential pricing analysis should be tossed since the DPA did not injure the plaintiffs, DOJ said in a March 11 brief at the Court of International Trade. Since the DPA ultimately found that no "masked" dumping was occurring, the use of the analysis, which is based on a statistical test called into question by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last year, did not give Best Mattresses and Rose Lion any standing to challenge it, the U.S. argued (Best Mattresses International Company v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00281).

The Court of International Trade extended the mediation period for a case brought by Evraz challenging the Commerce Department's denial of the importer's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests. In the March 15 order, the trade court gave the parties until April 29 to resolve litigation led by Judge Leo Gordon. Evraz called for mediation, along with other litigants, to discuss the availability of a remedy for already liquidated entries (Evraz Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-03869).

DOJ joined a motion to dismiss a countervailing duty case originally filed by CVD petitioner Dextar Wheels arguing that the Court of International Trade cannot order the Commerce Department to correct something it did not do in the first place. Filing its own motion to dismiss on March 15, DOJ said that the plaintiff, steel wheel importer Rimco, failed to make a claim on which relief can be granted since Commerce did not even establish an all-others rate in a CVD review -- precisely what Rimco is challenging (Rimco v. United States, CIT #21-00588).

Victoria's Secret and One Step Up filed 19 complaints at the Court of International Trade alleging that CBP had misclassified women's garments over a series of entries between 2002 and 2008. The 13 complaints (in Pacer) by Victoria's Secret and six by One Step Up filed on March 12 ask CIT to direct CBP to reliquidate the entries and refund the excess duties collected, with interest.

The Court of International Trade should disregard DOJ's motion to dismiss Canadian exporter J.D. Irving's challenge to antidumping duty cash deposit instructions since an already initiated USMCA panel would not be able to apply the proper remedy, the exporter said in a March 14 reply brief. Though the USMCA panel is reviewing the same legal issue raised at CIT, the relief available differs in that the USMCA panels do not have the power to issue an injunction, J.D. Irving said (J.D. Irving Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00641).

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Importer Root Sciences was denied on March 15 its motion for reconsideration of a Court of International Trade ruling that CBP's seizure of Root's imports precluded a deemed exclusion, stripping the court of jurisdiction over the case. Judge Gary Katzmann said that because the reconsideration motion "amounts to nothing more than a disagreement with the court’s reasoning on matters fully litigated, devoid of showing manifest error, it is insufficient to warrant reconsideration and is denied."

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

"Virtually every substantial issue" raised by plaintiffs in an antidumping duty challenge led by Ellwood City Forge Company still remains following a voluntary remand proceeding from the Commerce Department, the plaintiffs argued in a revised March 11 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. In particular, Ellwood argued Commerce's remand left unaddressed the issue of Commerce's failure to conduct verification in the antidumping duty investigation on forged steel end blocks from India (Ellwood City Forge Company v. United States, CIT #21-00007).

CBP's finding that Skyview Cabinet evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities from China was unsupported by evidence and based on hearsay, and improperly added full supply chain assessment requirements, the importer told the Court of International Trade in a March 10 complaint (Skyview Cabinet USA v. United States, CIT #22-00080).