The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department sought a voluntary remand in another Court of International Trade case over Section 232 tariff exclusion denials, on July 26, offering a remand schedule of four tranches, with the fourth to be submitted 325 days after a potential remand order. The case was brought by California Steel Industries, which challenged 193 exclusion request denials from Commerce and then offered the four-tiered remand schedule to address logistics concerns (California Steel Industries, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00015). The voluntary remand motion is one of many offered by Commerce which, following the JSW Steel, Inc. v. United States CIT decision, has been remanding other Section 232 exclusion request challenges (see 2107230038). Asked if it's the agency's policy to issue blanket rejections of the exclusion requests and then seek voluntary remands in CIT cases, a Commerce spokesperson said, "The Commerce Department does not comment on matters currently in litigation. The Bureau of Industry and Security reviews each exclusion request on a case-by-case basis."

The Commerce Department requested a voluntary remand on July 22 to reconsider exclusion requests made for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. In what is becoming a trend of the agency seeking remands at the Court of International Trade in cases over tariff exclusion requests (see 2107220057), Commerce wants to establish a new and independent review of the record to weigh all the evidence in the case. In light of the JSW Steel, Inc. v. United States CIT decision, which found that Commerce's exclusion request denials were "devoid of explanation and frustrate judicial review," the agency needs to take another look at its denials, it said (Evraz Inc. NA v. United States, CIT #20-03869).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department wants another shot to consider the Section 232 tariff exclusion requests filed by Allegheny Technologies Incorporated after the agency initially rejected them. In a July 21 motion for voluntary remand in the Court of International Trade, Commerce said that in light of a recent CIT decision, JSW Steel, Inc. v. United States, which found that Commerce's exclusion request denials were "devoid of explanation and frustrate judicial review," the agency needs to take another look at its denials (Allegheny Technologies Incoporated et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03923).

The Commerce Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act by using the same "boilerplate language" used in every Section 232 exclusion request denial when axing CPW America Co.'s bid for relief from the national security tariffs, the company said in a July 19 complaint. By filing suit in the Court of International Trade, CPWA becomes yet another steel importer to challenge what it deems the unlawful denial of a request for exclusion from the Section 232 tariffs. The importer says that Commerce erred in issuing the denial by failing to "meaningfully consider" the evidence submitted by CPWA and find that there were no overriding national security considerations in granting the exclusion request (CPW America Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00335).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The president may impose greater Section 232 national security tariffs beyond the 105-day timeframe for action set out in the statute, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a July 13 ruling. Overturning a lower court ruling, the Federal Circuit found that the underlying law's deadline for the president to take "action" can refer to a "plan of action" carried out over a period of time following the 105-day deadline. That authority is not unlimited, though, in that modifications must be related to the underlying reasoning for the tariffs and those reasons can't be "stale," CAFC said.

Steel exporter Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret will appeal a June 16 Court of International Trade decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a June 21 notice of appeal. In the decision, Judge Jane Restani sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping administrative review of circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey. The remand results dropped any adjustments made to the sales-below-cost test relating to a particular market situation (see 2106170026). Restani said that PMS adjustments are only allowed when calculating normal value based on constructed value, as opposed to normal value based on home market sales (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00015).