Antidumping duty petitioner American HFC Coalition took to the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's decision not to use Mexico as the primary surrogate nation in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on hydrofluorocarbon blends from China (The American HFC Coalition v. United States, CIT # 24-00071).

TikTok asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit May 7 to overturn a recently enacted law that will ban the popular social media application in the United States if China’s ByteDance doesn't sell the app to an entity that isn’t controlled by a foreign adversary.

The U.S. on May 3 defended its claim that anti-forced labor nonprofit International Rights Advocates doesn't have standing to sue CBP over its inaction in responding to a petition alleging cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire is made with forced child labor. Filing a brief in support of its motion to dismiss the suit, the government argued that IRAdvocates can't show injury-in-fact from CBP's purported inaction, and that the Court of International Trade can't compel discretionary law enforcement action in the form of a withhold release order (International Rights Advocates v. Alejandro Mayorkas, CIT # 23-00165).

The presumption of foreign state control in antidumping duty cases doesn't disappear after the exporter presents "minimal contradictory evidence," the government said in a reply brief on May 1 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Contrary to claims made by exporters Aeolus Tyre Co. and Guizhou Tyre Co., the government said, the Commerce Department "has long required respondents to demonstrate autonomy with respect to" all four criteria used to assess freedom from foreign state control, even for companies only minority-owned by a government entity (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2163).

The Court of International Trade on May 2 sustained the Commerce Department's recalculation of exporter Sahamitr Pressure Container's sales expenses in the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on steel propane cylinders from Thailand. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Sahamitr failed to undermine Commerce's finding that the company's monthly-based calculation of its sales costs were distortive.

The Court of International Trade on May 2 again sent back the Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government's full allotment of emissions permits under the Emissions Trading System of Korea (K-ETS) was de jure specific. Judge Mark Barnett said Commerce improperly used de facto specificity analysis factors, including data on who received the allotments, in assessing whether the additional permit allocations were specific as a matter of law.

Importer Nutricia North America told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that classifying its substances used to "treat life-threatening diseases in young children" as food preparations "not elsewhere specified" as opposed to "medicaments" or items "for the use or benefit" of handicapped people would lead to the "parents of very ill children" paying higher prices for these substances. In its opening brief on April 30, Nutricia said that this isn't the result Congress intended and that the Harmonized Tariff Schedule "can and should be interpreted to avoid that result" (Nutricia North America v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1436).

Southwest Airlines argued in an April 30 motion for judgment that CBP illicitly exacted Customs Passenger Processing Fees for passengers that canceled ticket purchases with the airline (Southwest Airlines Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00141).

A U.S. motion to reconsider a Court of International Trade decision (see 2404180041) finding that CBP defied the implicit contractual term of reasonableness in waiting eight years to demand payment under a customs bond from a surety company is "both procedurally and substantively flawed," surety Aegis Security Insurance Co. said (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT # 20-03628).

Trade lawyers said that recent legislation expanding the statute of limitations on sanctions violations from five to 10 years comes with clear expectations: costlier and longer sanctions investigations.