The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of March 20-26 and March 27 - April 2:

A request by DOJ to add an alleged "shell company" as a defendant in a fraud and evasion penalty case was denied by the Court of International Trade in an April 4 order (United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT # 22-00215). "Justice does not require acceptance of the amended complaint," Judge Jane Restani said in her order. If allowed, the amended complaint would have added AB MA Distribution Corp. as a defendant alongside Zhe "John" Liu.

A bid for reconsideration of a Court of International Trade decision permitting four U.S. steel companies to intervene in an ITC case (see 2303150072) is an attempt to relitigate the issue, and fails to satisfy the "high" standard for reconsideration, the U.S. steel companies said in a reply brief. The companies, Cleveland-Cliifs, Nucor Corp., Steel Dynamics and SSAB Enterprises, said that exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) failed to point to any specific legal authority for reconsideration of the intervention decision (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. United States, CIT # 22-00349).

The U.S. cannot escape Congress' plain meaning in requiring CBP to distribute interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, "no matter how many new arguments DOJ throws into its brief on appeal," appellants led by Hilex Poly Co. argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DOJ tries to "rewrite history," seeing as its interpretation "flies in the face of the statute's command to distribute 'all interest,'" the brief said (Hilex Poly Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2106).

The International Trade Commission incorrectly found that imports of cut-to-length plate from Brazil did not threaten domestic producers, in its five-year reviews of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate, domestic producer Cleveland-Cliffs said in a March 31 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade (Cleveland-Cliffs v. U.S., CIT # 23-00050).

The court should grant defendant AT&T’s unopposed motion to stay discovery and the joint proposal deadline pending its motion to dismiss EDN Global’s fraud claim against it, said the carrier’s Friday motion (docket 3:23-cv-00355) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta. EDN sued AT&T in July in Superior Court of Fulton County in Georgia, with allegations including tortious interference with contract and business relations, fraud, trade secrets theft, theft by deception and taking, conversion, Georgia racketeering, and breach of fiduciary duty and confidential relationship, said the complaint. AT&T moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim and to transfer the venue, which plaintiffs opposed. On Feb. 14, U.S. District Court Judge J.P. Boulee of Northern Georgia granted AT&T a motion to transfer. Boulee didn’t rule on AT&T’s motion to dismiss; the motion remains pending. Counsel for plaintiffs and defendants met March 24 to discuss whether the case could be settled, said the motion, saying the parties agreed to stay discovery and a joint proposal deadline until resolution of the motion to dismiss.

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

Boronized steel tubes, originally classified by CBP as duty-free U.S. goods returned after repairs, are correctly classified as unfinished steel tubes and subject to Section 301 tariffs, DOJ argued in its March 31 motion at the Court of International Trade. The government asked the court to deny a motion by importer Maple Leaf Marketing to dismiss the government's counterclaim (Maple Leaf Marketing v. United State, CIT # 20-03839).

The Commerce Department legally used the expected method to calculate the antidumping duty rate for non-individually examined respondents in the administrative review of the AD order on steel nails from Taiwan, the agency told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a reply brief. The agency used the total adverse facts available rate for two non-cooperative respondents as the all-others rate (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2128).

Liquidation of imported picture frame moldings should have been suspended pending antidumping and countervailing duty administrative reviews, importer Larson-Juhl told the Court of International Trade in a March 30 complaint. The complaint contests CBP's denial of Larson-Juhl's protests concerning the liquidation and assessment of duties on nine entries subject to AD and CVD orders on wood mouldings and millwork products from China (Larson-Juhl US v. United States., CIT # 23-00032).