A conflict of interest allegation did not cause an antidumping duty investigation respondent to untimely file its questionnaire responses, the Commerce Department argued in a Sept. 27 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to Tau-Ken Temir's brief explaining that this allegation was the reason for the delay in filing the responses, Commerce said that it did not abuse its discretion when it found that the petitioner did not interfere with TKT's ability to file the questionnaire responses (Tau-Ken Temir LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00173).
The Commerce Department needs more information before it will consider allegations that solar cell imports from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are circumventing antidumping duties on China, the agency said in a Sept. 29 letter. Penned to Timothy Brightbill, lead counsel for an anonymous group of domestic U.S. solar cell manufacturers that seeks the inquiry, the letter requested a slew of information from the domestic producers to clear threshold concerns, including the full name and address of each member of the anonymous coalition.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department continued to find that antidumping respondents Aeolus Tyre and Guizhou Tyre Co. were de facto controlled by the Chinese government, denying them separate rate status in Sept. 24 remand results filed at the Court of International Trade (Guizhou Tyre Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #17-00100).
The Justice Department moved for a voluntary remand in a duty evasion case after finding out that the parties to the investigation were not provided with certain documents in the investigation. DOJ argued that the remand should be granted since the parties should have the chance to make arguments to CBP based on this withheld information to inform the ultimate evasion decision (Norca Industrial Company, LLC et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00192).
The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit granted Google’s petition to transfer Sonos’ patent infringement case against the company to the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California from the Waco, Texas, federal court where the case originated. The Waco district court erred when it denied Google’s motion for the transfer on grounds that Google “had failed to make a showing sufficient to justify transferring the case,” ruled the Federal Circuit Monday. “The district court’s refusal to transfer the case” amounted to “a clear abuse of discretion” because it improperly weighed the factors favoring the transfer to California, the ruling said. The Sonos suit, filed a year ago, alleges Google devices infringe five inventions on technology for streaming music from the cloud to wireless playback devices. Sonos won an initial determination at the International Trade Commission that Google infringes a separate set of five Sonos multiroom wireless audio patents. The ITC is scheduled to release a final determination in mid-December. Google declined comment on the Federal Circuit's order. A Sonos spokesperson emailed: “While we respectfully disagree with today’s decision, we have a very strong case and look forward to moving forward expeditiously in California.”
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Requiring a CBP protest to obtain a refund under exclusions from Section 301 tariffs usurps the authority of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and unlawfully hands it over to CBP, importers ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings argued at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (ARP Materials, Inc., et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2176).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 24 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 20-26: