The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Court of International Trade activity
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate Oct. 8 in a case involving the Commerce Department's use of the "Cohen's d test" to discover targeted or masked dumping. The mandate led the Court of International Trade to remand the case to Commerce to bring its final results in an antidumping investigation into welded line pipe from South Korea in line with the Federal Circuit's opinion. The appellate court held that Commerce must further explain its use of this statistical test when using its differential pricing analysis since Commerce may not be adhering to certain assumptions required to perform the Cohen's d test (see 2107150032). A proposed briefing schedule decided by all parties is due by Oct. 28 (Stupp Corporation et al. v. U.S., et al., CAFC # 2020-1857).
The Court of International Trade entered partial judgment in a case over the antidumping duty investigation into Chinese quartz surface product in an Oct. 8 order. Having issued a partial decision in September, Judge Leo Gordon said that the remaining issue under litigation is separate from the already-ruled aspects of the case. In September, Gordon upheld the Commerce Department's decision to pick Mexico over Malaysia as a surrogate country for the purposes of calculating normal value in the AD case (see 2109270059). The remaining issue, brought by M S International, concerns whether Commerce had the requisite industry support to initiate the investigation -- an issue for which the court just sided with Commerce in a separate antidumping case (see 2110080035).
The U.S.'s bid for more time to respond to importer Eteros Technologies USA's motion for judgment should be denied since the Department of Justice has not shown good cause for the extension, Eteros said in an Oct. 7 brief at the Court of International Trade. The case concerns CBP's seizure of Eteros' motor frame assemblies -- part of a marijuana and plant harvesting unit -- under the premise that the assemblies constitute "drug paraphernalia."
A customs broker exam taker who is appealing his failing score is asking the Court of International Trade to overturn CBP’s denial of credit for seven questions from the April 2018 test. In a brief filed Oct. 1, Byungmin Chae says CBP erroneously graded his customs broker exam, denying him a broker license on its mistaken finding that he did not score 75 percent or higher.
The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's final results in the administrative review of the countervailing duty order on certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China covering entries from 2017, in an Oct. 12 order. Commerce, as it has done many times before, applied adverse facts available relating to its inability to verify non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program by the two mandatory respondents' U.S. customers. Judge Timothy Reif issued lengthy remand orders to Commerce, instructing the agency, for instance, to explain how one of the respondent's questionnaire statements showing its non-use of the program are unverifiable by describing Commerce's step-by-step methodology for verifying non-use.
The Court of International Trade does in fact have jurisdiction to hear a case over denied attorney access to confidential information in a safeguard proceeding at the International Trade Commission, counsel for LG Electronics told the court in an Oct. 6 reply brief. The denial of access to the proceeding constitutes a final agency action, making the denial eligible for judicial review, the brief said (LG Electronics USA, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT 21-00520).
An alleged transshipper in an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion investigation was allowed to intervene in a case at the Court of International Trade, per an Oct. 7 order. Kingtom Aluminio was originally denied the right to intervene for failing to show a legally protectable interest in the case. Judge Richard Eaton changed his tune in the most recent order, now agreeing that the company has a protectable interest.
The Commerce Department properly found that it had enough industry support to initiate antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products (QSP) from India, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 7 decision. Issuing a partial opinion in the case solely to address the concerns of M S International (MSI), Judge Leo Gordon said that Commerce legally interpreted "producers" of QSPs as excluding QSP fabricators.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: