United States Steel Corporation will file an interlocutory appeal of a Court of International Trade opinion denying it the right to intervene in multiple challenges to the Commerce Department's denials of Section 232 tariff exclusions, according to a July 22 notice of appeal. The domestic steel producer will appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Judge Miller Baker of CIT rejected U.S. Steel's intervention bid (see 2105260037) since the company does not have a legally protectable 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 "adequately addressed by the government's participation" (California Steel Industries, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00015).
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 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).
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 following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a July 20 order granted the Commerce Department's request for a partial voluntary remand despite the mandatory respondent's objections. Judge Jane Restani allowed Commerce to take another look at its final results in the countervailing duty investigation into utility scale wind towers from Indonesia to reconsider whether it “improperly included an export subsidy in its upstream subsidy calculation.” The issue was broached with the court “some time ago,” so a simple decision on the matter appears likely, the judge said (PT. Kenertec Power System v. U.S., CIT #20-03687). The government's remand results are due Aug. 19, and the parties have until Aug. 23 to notify the court if a supplemental briefing is required, the order said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department resubmitted remand results on July 16, fixing clerical errors in the dumping margins for non-individually examined respondents in an antidumping review on certain oil country tubular goods from South Korea. After initially fixing clerical errors in a resubmission of the remand results, which stemmed from an April Court of International Trade decision, the July 16 filing marks the second time that Commerce has had to amend errors in its dumping margin calculation. The recalculated rates have now changed from 16.73% to 5.28% for SeAH Steel Corp., from 32.24% to 9.77% for Nexteel Co., and from 24.49% to 7.53% for the non-examined companies. The remand results also reversed Commerce's initial finding of a particular market situation in the South Korean steel market (see 2107010048) (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).
The Commerce Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act by using the same "boilerplate language" used in every Section 232 exclusion request denial when axing CPW America Co.'s bid for relief from the national security tariffs, the company said in a July 19 complaint. By filing suit in the Court of International Trade, CPWA becomes yet another steel importer to challenge what it deems the unlawful denial of a request for exclusion from the Section 232 tariffs. The importer says that Commerce erred in issuing the denial by failing to "meaningfully consider" the evidence submitted by CPWA and find that there were no overriding national security considerations in granting the exclusion request (CPW America Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00335).
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