The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 18-24:
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Evan Wallach on March 25 deferred exporter Oman Fasteners' motion to dismiss an interlocutory appeal in an antidumping duty case to the three-judge merits panel assigned to the case. The appeal came from petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire from the Court of International Trade's decision to impose an injunction on the Commerce Department's AD cash deposits on Oman Fasteners' steel nail imports. Oman Fasteners moved to dismiss the appeal, claiming that since the injunction is no longer active since Commerce completed the next review of the AD order, there's no live controversy (see 2401300069). The trade court granted the injunction after finding the agency abused its discretion in setting a 154.33% AD rate on the exporter for narrowly missing a filing deadline (Oman Fasteners v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).
Three companies challenging the International Trade Commission's injury finding on Mexican and Chinese rail couplers responded to the ITC's and the petitioner's opposition to their motion to consolidate their cases, arguing that the "result is to sandbag Plaintiffs." Dubbing the ITC's opposition to the consolidation a "highly unusual move," the three companies -- Amsted Rail Co., Wabtec Corp. and Strato -- said that the opposition is "procedurally dubious" and "entirely meritless" (Amsted Rail Ind. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00268; Wabtec Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00157; Strato v. United States, CIT # 23-00158).
The Court of International Trade on March 21 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a countervailing duty case in which it "changed the way it calculated ocean freight." Since no party objected to the new calculation, Judge Jane Restani sustained the remand.
Judge Mark Barnett of the Court of International Trade indicated in March 19 oral arguments that he is leaning toward remanding a case about the application of an adverse facts available rate to an exporter that missed an unusual 10 a.m. filing deadline by five hours (Cambria Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00007).
The Court of International Trade in a decision made public March 21 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to rely on "other information" instead of polling the industry to calculate industry support for the antidumping duty investigation on oil country tubular goods from Argentina. But Judge Claire Kelly sent back the industry support decision due to accuracy concerns on the data Commerce relied on, including on whether "finishing operations were counted twice."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Correction: The Commerce Department shouldn't have granted a de minimis antidumping duty rate to a respondent in the AD investigation on preserved mushrooms from the Netherlands, the domestic petitioner for the investigation argued in a motion for judgment filed at the Court of International Trade Nov. 21 (see 2312010061) (Giorgio Foods v. U.S., CIT # 23-00133).
A Vietnamese exporter and the U.S. both opposed March 20 defendant-intervenors’ motion to consolidate the exporter’s three cases fighting the assignment of adverse facts available to an exporter due to a minor submission delay (Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00250).
Importer Maple Leaf Marketing filed a stipulation of dismissal in its customs suit on the classification of boronized steel tubing. Before the dismissal, the case served as a forum for the government to argue that it could assert counterclaims in customs cases. The U.S. moved to redesignate its counterclaim as a defense, which the Court of International Trade granted after finding that nowhere in Congress' scheme on the classification of goods does the legislative body explicitly let the government assert a counterclaim challenging CBP's classification (see 2306140053). The original counterclaim said that the steel tubes, originally classified by CBP as duty-free U.S. goods returned after repairs, are subject to Section 301 tariffs and correctly classified as unfinished steel tubes (Maple Leaf Marketing v. United States, CIT # 20-03839).