No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
Court of International Trade activity
The Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 18 opinion that the U.S. must respond to 25 of importer Greenlight Organic's requests for admissions in a customs fraud case. Having filed 116 of them, Greenlight, along with exporter Parambir Singh Aulakh, then moved to compel the U.S. to respond, hoping that they would narrow the scope of the fraud case and expedite the process. The court agreed with the U.S.'s objections to many of the RFAs, but ultimately granted the move to compel the U.S. to answer the remaining 25.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty review dropping a cost-based particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test, in an Oct. 19 order. Commerce dropped the PMS adjustment after the court previously found that the law does not permit such an adjustment for the purposes of calculating normal value (see 2106220064).
The Court of International Trade issued two opinions in antidumping cases, one sustaining the Commerce Department's remand results, and another remanding certain issues back to the agency. The first decision concerned a challenge brought by Husteel to the 2016-17 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from South Korea. As it has done many times before, the court had initially remanded Commerce's decision to make a particular market situation adjustment to Husteel's sales-below-cost test. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said this adjustment is not permissible under the law, so Commerce dropped it under protest, leading the judge to sustain the remand.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department fixed an error in its liquidation instructions related to an antidumping duty review in its Oct. 15 remand results at the Court of International Trade. The remand was voluntarily requested by Commerce after it identified the error in the liquidation restrictions (Optima Steel International, LLC, et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00327).
Consolidated plaintiff, defendant-intervenor and Canadian lumber company Fontaine will appeal an August Court of International Trade opinion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, it said in an Oct. 15 notice of appeal. The decision vacated a Commerce Department regulation establishing expedited reviews for countervailing duty investigations (see 2108190002). Following four opinions from CIT, the trade court eventually found that it could not find any statutory basis for the regulations. Another consolidated plaintiff and defendant-intervenor, Mobilier Rustique (Beauce) Inc., has appealed the decision (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations, et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #19-00122).
Taiwanese manufacturer Innolux Corporation launched its case against CBP's classification of the company's shipments of Hewlett-Packard 25-inch monitors, in an Oct. 15 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The case was originally filed in 2013 but placed on the reserve calendar, with counsel for Innolux filing for extensions of time to remain on the reserve calendar beginning in December 2014 (Innolux Corporation v. United States, CIT #13-00272).
The Court of International Trade should grant the Commerce Department's voluntary request for a remand in an antidumping case, so the agency can review whether it was appropriate to rely on supplemental questionnaire responses, seeing as it couldn't conduct an on-site verification, Commerce argued in an Oct. 18 brief (Ellwood City Forge Company, et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00007).
The Court of International Trade granted a preliminary injunction against the liquidation of Chinese exporter Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co.'s wood cabinet and vanity entries, in an Oct. 18 order. Although Meisen filed for the PI after the 30-day period to move for an injunction, the court accepted its PI bid since the exporter showed good cause as to why the delay was necessary (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #20-00110).