Jacob Kopnick

A federal district court denied two Alaska shipping companies' bid for an expedited temporary restraining order against CBP penalties for seafood shipments found to be in violation of the Jones Act. In a Sept. 28 opinion, Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska held that the plaintiffs, Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management, were unlikely to succeed in the case since the pair did not have a tariff filed to cover the transportation route in question.

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 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 following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department decided to value a key solar cell input using Bulgarian imports rather than Thai imports after the Court of International Trade said the agency's use of the Thai surrogate data was improper, it told the court in Sept. 27 remand results (Solarworld Americas, Inc. et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #16-00134).

The Commerce Department ditched its reliance on adverse facts available for respondent Hyundai Steel in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade in a challenge to an antidumping review on cold-rolled steel flat products from South Korea. After giving Hyundai an opportunity to explain a discrepancy between two product codes, the agency accepted the explanation and thus dropped its adverse facts available finding. Commerce also rescinded its decision to apply the all-others rate to one of Hyundai's affiliated freight companies, dubbed "Company A" (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00099).

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 Commerce Department's calculation of the separate rate in an antidumping duty review by averaging the separate rates from the previous four administrative reviews was backed by substantial evidence, the Court of International Trade said in a Sept. 27 order. After previously finding that Commerce's extension of the adverse facts available rate to the non-individually examined respondents was unlawful, the court then upheld the agency's new separate rate calculation methodology.

The International Trade Commission had no authority to deny lawyers representing LG Electronics access to confidential business information during a safeguard proceeding on solar cells from China, the lawyers argued in a Sept. 24 brief at the Court of International Trade. The congressional mandate for granting administrative protective orders (APOs) merely tells the ITC what it "shall" do, so commission had no grounds to deny a timely filed APO application, the Curtis Mallet-Prevost lawyers said (LG Electronics USA, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT 21-00520).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: