Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 3-8:
The antidumping and countervailing duty processes insure that proceedings are accurate and based on complete information, a Government Accountability Office report found. The report, released Jan. 9, was commissioned at the request of Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in order to examine concerns that domestic companies may sometimes file petitions without merit to obstruct domestic market competition, the GAO said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 9 order gave the U.S. more time to file its reply brief in a case involving imports seized as "drug paraphernalia." The government now has until Feb. 10 to submit its response. Root Sciences filed the case after CBP seized one of its cannabis crude extract recovery machines. The agency didn't notify Root of the seizure but instead sent the importer an automated notice that the goods had been deemed excluded from entry. Root eventually learned of the seizure through an email from DOJ eight hours after filing its case at the Court of International Trade (Root Sciences v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1795).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department's surrogate value picks for inputs of activated carbon violated the law, exporter Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. argued in a Jan. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce further erred by deducting VAT amounts from Jilin Bright's export price and in its valuation of the overhead; selling, general and administrative expenses; and profit components of normal value by calculating surrogate financial ratios with data from Tan Meng Keong and Century Chemical Works, the exporter said (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00336).
The Supreme Court of the U.S. in a Jan. 5 order gave the government more time to respond to a petition in a broad challenge to President Donald Trump's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. The U.S. now has until Feb. 21 to respond after arguing that it needed additional time due to the "heavy press of earlier assigned cases to the attorneys handling this matter" (USP Holdings v. United States, U.S.S.C. #22-0565)
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 5 text-only order denied the antidumping petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire's motion to extend time to file opposition to plaintiff Oman Fastener's bid for a preliminary injunction against cash deposit requirements. Oman Fasteners on Jan. 4 filed its opposition to the time extension request, telling the trade court that "because the continued existence of Oman Fasteners hangs precariously in the balance, and because the ten-day extension proposed by Mid Continent would compound Oman Fasteners’ substantial ongoing irreparable harm, this is that rare case" requiring the extension bid to be denied (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT #22-00348).
The Commerce Department properly found that it had enough industry support to kick off the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations into quartz surface products from India, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in a Jan. 5 opinion. Upholding the Court of International Trade's ruling, Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Sharon Prost ruled that Commerce permissibly found that the term "producer" did not include quartz surface product fabricators and that the agency backed its finding that fabricators are not producers with substantial evidence via its six-factor production-related activities test.