A group of gun manufacturers' and one gun distributor's bid to toss a case filed by the Mexican government alleging that the defendants carry out illegal selling practices that facilitate the trafficking of weapons into Mexico falls flat, the Mexican government argued in a Jan. 31 reply brief. Filing its reply at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the Mexican government said that the manufacturers and distributor improperly seek legal shelter under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, since the protection from lawsuit entailed in this act only applies to harm caused in the U.S. and not in Mexico, as the Mexican government alleges (Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, et al., D.C. Mass. #21-11269).
The Court of International Trade should throw out Wheatland Tube's case intended to compel CBP to respond to the company's requests for information and a tariff classification ruling because Wheatland has received all the relief to which it is legally entitled, the Department of Justice said in a Feb. 2 motion to dismiss the case. CBP has already responded to this RFI and the petition for a tariff classification ruling over the company's electrical conduits from Mexico, DOJ said. CBP also told Wheatland it agrees with the company's stance on the correct classification of its steel conduit pipe and was defending this position in separate litigation (Wheatland Tube Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00004).
The Court of International Trade properly found that there was no statutory basis for conducting expedited countervailing duty reviews, plaintiff-appellee Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 31 reply brief. The language in certain sections of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act doesn't establish that Congress "clearly and unambiguously" meant for Commerce to set up CVD expedited review procedures, the committee said (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1021).
The Commerce Department must either conduct verification in an antidumping case, even if virtually, or more fully explain why it didn't conduct virtual verification in the face of a request to do so, the Court of International Trade said in a Feb. 2 decision. Judge Stephen Vaden expressed doubts over whether Commerce could complete the latter option, given that the agency failed to respond to the request for virtual verification. Commerce said no verification was conducted due to COVID-19-related restrictions. Vaden lambasted Commerce over this rationale given high-level U.S. officials' trips to India, the location of the would-be verification.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Defendant-appellants in a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test said that the issue had already been decided by the Federal Circuit in a recent decision. In a letter to the appellate court, the defendant-appellants, Nucor Tubular Products, Atlas Tube and Searing Industries, said that they intend to seek initial en banc reconsideration in light of this opinion or a stay of further proceedings pending full resolution of this separate case (Dong-A Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2153).
A lawsuit by Home Depot USA over the president's authority to expand Section 232 national security tariffs beyond procedural deadlines filed at the Court of International Trade was assigned to a three-judge panel, in a Feb. 2 order. The judges -- Timothy Stanceu, Jennifer Choe-Groves and M. Miller Baker -- ruled on the original April 2021 decision to strike down the expansion of the Section 232 tariffs onto steel and aluminum "derivatives" (see 2104050049). (Home Depot USA v. United States, CIT #22-00014).
Thirteen U.S. states, along with Washington, D.C., two Latin American and Caribbean nations and a host of gun violence prevention organizations moved to appear as amici curiae to support the Mexican government's lawsuit against gun manufacturers, which alleges that they fueled violence in Mexico through illegal firearms sales practices (Estados Unidos Mexicanos v. Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc., et al., D.C. Mass. #21-11269).
The Court of International Trade upheld for the second time the Commerce Department's decision that no benefit was conferred to South Korean steel companies through the provision of electricity. In a decision written on Jan. 21 but made public on Feb. 1, Judge Mark Barnett sustained Commerce's decision after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded it for unlawfully relying on price discrimination instead of a thorough fair-market principles evaluation. Barnett said Commerce has now addressed the Federal Circuit's concerns.
The Court of International Trade granted the Commerce Department's request to re-review its decision to deny 15 exclusion requests from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, in a Feb. 1 order. Plaintiff NLMK Pennsylvania had consented to the request, even though Commerce's offer only covered 15 of the 54 total exclusion denial challenges made by NLMK. In its order, CIT did shorten the amount of time Commerce has to review the 15 cases from 150 days, as requested by the agency, to 106 days.