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

The Commerce Department on Dec. 19 filed a pair of remand redeterminations at the Court of International Trade that exclude ductile iron flanges imported by MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, and Star Pipe Products from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China. The trade court previously said the remand results were not issued in a form that the court could sustain. On remand, the agency clarified that it doesn't intend to issue a scope ruling after the court's review of the case, declaring that if the court affirms the remand, a Federal Register notice will be released stating that Crane's and Star Pipe's flanges are outside the scope of the order (MCC Holdings dba Crane Resistoflex v. U.S., CIT # 18-00248) (Star Pipe Products v. United States, CIT # 17-00236).

Cannabis and cannabis accessory importers now have a "strong legal argument with potentially broad applications to challenge CBP's seizures" of marijuana paraphernalia in light of two recent Court of International Trade decisions, Harris Bricken lawyer Adams Lee said in a Dec. 16 blog post. Both cases involved the question of whether an importer could enter marijuana-related drug paraphernalia into Washington state, given that marijuana was made legal at the state level but remained illegal federally. Lee said that given how the opinions were structured, a state law repealing a past prohibition on such products "could be enough of an 'authorization' by the state law to block the federal prohibition on importing drug paraphernalia."

The Court of International Trade should dismiss a case from importer Southern Cross Seafood involving the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) for lack of jurisdiction, the U.S. argued in a Dec. 19 motion. Measures involving the CCAMLR belong exclusively at district courts and the statute "could not be more clear," the brief said. The case challenges the National Marine Fisheries Service's decision to deny Southern Cross' application for preapproval to import Chilean sea bass (Southern Cross Seafoods v. United States, CIT # 22-00299).

The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 20 opinion denied an injunction bid pending appeal from certain plaintiffs in an attorney conflict-of interest suit. After recently rejecting the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Judge Gary Katzmann this time rejected the injunction motion pending appeal since the appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "has not yet been noticed," but even if it had, the injunction "is unwarranted." Katzmann said that the plaintiffs fail to both show a "strong showing of success on the merits" and prove that they will suffer irreparable harm without the injunction.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of Dec. 5-11 and Dec. 12-18:

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

The Commerce Department on Dec. 16 filed its remand redetermination in a Court of International Trade case stemming from its countervailing duty investigation on phosphate fertilizers from Russia (The Mosaic Company v. U.S., CIT #21-00117). Commerce reconsidered its calculation of the total sales for EuroChem, its calculation of the natural gas benchmark, and its analysis of mining rights for less than adequate remuneration. Commerce revised its subsidy rate calculations for EuroChem from 47.05% to 23.77%, for PhosAgro from 9.19% to 14.3%, and the "all others" rate from 17.2% to 16.3%.

Canada recently released a proposal to strengthen and update its foreign direct investment reviews, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported Dec. 16. The proposal could lead to the “most significant update” to the country’s investment screening regime in more than a decade, the report said, and would establish a new filing requirement for investments in a range of “prescribed sectors,” including in cases in which the foreign investor would gain access to “sensitive assets, information, intellectual property or trade secrets.” The proposal also includes stronger penalties for noncompliance with the filing requirements and mitigation agreements.

CBP affirmed its July determination that importers Starille, Ltd., Nutrawave Co., Ltd., and Newtrend USA evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on glycine from China, according to a notice dated Nov. 30 and released Dec. 16.