The Court of International Trade on March 16 upheld the use of a questionnaire instead of on-site verification in the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation on aluminum sheet from Turkey. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Commerce "easily" defeated respondent Teknik Aluminyum Sanayi's challenge because Teknik cited no authority requiring the agency to carry out a certain verification procedure during a global pandemic.

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

The Court of International Trade doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear a case involving a textile company’s dispute with CBP, saying the company sought relief under the wrong statute, Judge Timothy Stanceu held in a March 10 opinion. The trade court found Printing Textiles, doing business as Berger Textiles, didn’t show why the denied protest challenge should be filed under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, and not Section 1581(a). Berger filed a notice of appeal the next business day.

The Commerce Department does not need an additional 91 days to produce a remand redetermination on a scope ruling involving antidumping and countervailing duties on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, importer Valeo said in a March 14 response motion at the Court of International Trade (Valeo North America v. United States, CIT # 21-00581).

Exporter China Custom Manufacturing will file a motion for a rehearing and seek en banc review of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision finding the company's solar panel mounts do not qualify for the "finished merchandise" exclusion from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, George Tuttle, counsel for CCM, told Trade Law Daily (China Custom Manufacturing Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1345).

DirecTV litigation accusing Nexstar and its broadcast sidecars Mission and White Knight of colluding to set retransmission consent fee prices is likely more a retrans consent negotiation tactic than a direct attack on sidecar operations, broadcast lawyers told us.

Plaintiff Jazmine Harris and defendant PBS continue trading notices of supplemental authority back and forth to bolster their positions in Harris’ class action accusing the network of Video Privacy Protection Act wrongdoing and PBS’ motion to dismiss her claims. In his March 7 opinion in Goldstein v. Fandango Media (docket 9:21-cv-80466), U.S. District Judge Kenneth Mara for Southern Florida denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss “in a case with similar claims and factual allegations” to those asserted by Harris, said the plaintiff's notice Monday (docket 1:22-cv-02456) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta. Mara said the plaintiffs “plausibly allege” VPPA violations resulting from defendant’s practice of disclosing its users’ personally identifiable information (PII) via the Facebook tracking pixel tool that’s installed on its website, said the notice. Mara’s opinion is relevant to Harris’ argument that, based on the facts alleged in the complaint, she “sufficiently alleged a violation of the VPPA, particularly at the motion to dismiss stage,” it said. PBS filed its own notice of supplemental authority last month documenting the Southern District of New York’s dismissal Feb. 17 of a VPPA complaint in Martin v. Meredith (docket 1:22-cv-04776), alleging the same VPPA claim plaintiff Harris is asserting against PBS (see 2302220035). The SDNY based its dismissal on its finding that the alleged transmissions of data didn’t qualify as PII under the VPPA, just as PBS is asserting against Harris.

No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

DOJ has asked the Court of International Trade permission to add AB MA Distribution Corporation as a defendant alongside Zhe "John" Liu and GL Paper Distribution in an amended complaint in a penalty case at the Court of International Trade. AB MA is allegedly a shell company through which Liu continued an illegal transshipment scheme to import Chinese-origin wire hangers through Malaysia, India and Thailand in order to evade antidumping and countervailing duties (see 2302070047) (United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT # 22-00215).

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: