The Labor Department continued to find that a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees are not entitled to trade adjustment assistance for outsourced jobs in July 22 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. On May 4, the court remanded the case to the agency after Judge M. Miller Baker found that Labor failed to discuss or even reference the union's evidence of why the trade adjustment case was warranted in its determination (see 2105040032) (Communications Workers of America Local 4123, on behalf of Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc. v. United States Secretary of Labor, CIT #20-00075).
Court of International Trade activity
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
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).
Electralloy/G.O. Carlson will appeal to the U.A. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit a Court of International Trade decision denying it the right to intervene in two Section 232 tariff exclusion challenges, it said in two July 23 notices of appeal. Judge M. Miller Baker of CIT rejected the company's intervention bid since the company doesn't have a legally protected interest in the case, a direct relationship with the litigation where it would gain or lose by the judgment, nor any demonstration that its interests will not be addressed by the government defense (see 2105260037). The U.S. Steel Corporation also tried to intervene in various Section 232 challenges, and filed its own appeal of the denied interventions on July 22 (see 2107220041). The company filed two more notices of appeal in two other Section 232 challenges on July 23.
Importers ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings will file an appeal of a Court of International Trade opinion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a July 21 notice of appeal. The decision, penned by Judge Miller Baker, found importers must file protests to preserve their ability to obtain refunds under Section 301 tariff exclusions (see 2106110053). The court said it did not have the jurisdiction to hear ARP and Harrison's challenge because the importers did not timely file protests of the CBP liquidations imposing the Section 301 tariffs (The Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States, CIT #20-00147).
In dueling briefs filed to the Court of International Trade in a case over the president's decision to reverse a safeguard exemption on bifacial solar panels, the Department of Justice and plaintiffs led by the Solar Energy Industries Association argued over whether a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion is relevant to their case. The decision, Transpacific Steel LLC et al. v. U.S., found that the president could hike Section 232 national security tariffs beyond time limits imposed by the statute (see 2107130059). DOJ in its brief said that the decision lends itself to ruling in the government's favor in the case of the solar panels. SEIA said that the decision has "little relevance" to its case since the decision deals with "an entirely different statute," in its letter (Solar Energy Industries Association et al. v. United States, CIT #29-03941).
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 Court of International Trade should dismiss an importer's challenge of CBP's deemed exclusion of its apparel imports because the protest was filed the day before the apparel was actually deemed excluded, the Department of Justice said in a July 19 brief backing the motion to dismiss. Due to this premature filing, DOJ said the court lacks Section 1581(a) jurisdiction on the matter (Alive Distributor Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00236).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 23 on AD/CV duty proceedings: