The U.S. asked for an extended stay in a customs penalty suit against Greenlight Organic and its owner Parambir Singh "Sonny" Aulakh given that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York opened a criminal investigation on the evidence recovered during a search of Aulakh's residence. Filing a status report in the Court of International Trade, the government said the case should be stayed until Jan. 2, after which the U.S. will file another status report "updating the Court on whether a continued stay is needed" (United States v. Greenlight Organic, CIT # 17-00031).

The Commerce Department's failure to use a weighted average to calculate the denominator of the Cohen’s d test coefficient in an antidumping duty case remand was contrary to the underlying academic literature and produced unreasonable results, a group of AD respondents said in their Oct. 2 comments to the Court of International Trade. The respondents argued that Commerce failed to explain its choice in the face of its own practice and judicial precedent and have asked the court to remand the case to Commerce with instructions to calculate the denominator of the Cohen’s d equation either by weight averaging the standard deviations of the test group and the comparison group or by relying on the standard deviation of the entire population (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 15-00213).

The Commerce Department made multiple errors when it miscalculated benchmark data and its use of adverse inferences in a countervailing duty review on multilayered wood flooring from China, Chinese wood flooring exporters and consolidated plaintiffs Fine Furniture (Shanghai) and Double F said in an Sept. 29 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The brief raised similar points to one filed by respondent Baroque Timber Industries two weeks earlier (see 2309180042) (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 22-00210).

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 4 opinion sustained the Commerce Department's method for picking an adverse facts available rate for antidumping duty respondent Sino-Maple as part of the sixth review of the AD order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Judge Richard Eaton partially vacated his previous opinion in the case following oral argument with the parties, finding that Commerce was in fact not barred from using mandatory Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co.'s "highest transaction-specific dumping margin" as Sino-Maple's AFA rate.

The Court of International Trade doesn't have subject-matter jurisdiction over the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's (FLETF) addition of entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, the U.S. argued in an Oct. 3 motion to dismiss. Seeking dismissal of a case filed by Chinese printer cartridge manufacturer Ninestar Corp., the government said that because the FLETF's decision is neither an embargo nor a quantitive restriction, the court doesn't have jurisdiction over the proceeding under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).

A proposed voluntary remand of an Enforce and Protect Act case should be allowed to proceed as is, over an importer's objections, DOJ said in an Oct. 2 brief to the Court of International Trade. DOJ filed a motion to remand the case in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S., in which the court said CBP violated an EAPA party's due process rights by not granting them access to business confidential information (see 2309150011) (Newtrend USA Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00347).

The Commerce Department unlawfully chose to include sales of wood chips in its calculation of market value and incorrectly found that one of Canfor's sawmills purchased electricity from an affiliate, the Canadian softwood lumber exporter said in its Oct. 2 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The department's use of a differential pricing method also was unlawful, the exporter said in its request for remand (Canfor Corporation v. U.S., CIT # 23-00188).

Commerce's use of adverse facts available for the Export Buyer's Credit Program (EBCP) in the review of a countervailing duty order on common alloy aluminum sheet from China was unlawful because there wasn't actually a gap in the record as to whether exporter Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum and its customers used the program, the exporter said in an Oct. 2 brief at the Court of International Trade. Even if there was, Commerce failed to provide exporter Alcha with a chance to fix it, the exporter said (Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00290).

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The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 4 opinion vacated part of its prior decision in an antidumping case remanding the Commerce Department's methodology for calculating an adverse facts available rate for mandatory respondent Sino-Maple (JiangSu) Co. Judge Richard Eaton said Commerce can use the highest transaction-specific dumping margin for the other mandatory respondent in the review, Senmao, as the total AFA rate for Sino-Maple after initially rejecting the move. The opinion comes as part of the sixth AD review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Commerce did not submit a remand redetermination following Eaton's original decision but instead vied for reconsideration of the opinion.