Jacob Kopnick

Iraq resumed its talks on accession to the World Trade Organization on July 18 following a 16-year break in the negotiating process. The WTO said Iraq "reaffirmed its pledge to join" the world body, while noting its "significant economic and legislative reforms."

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

The World Trade Organization's published agenda for the Dispute Settlement Body's July 26 meeting indicates China will request the establishment of a dispute settlement panel on the U.S. government's tax credits for electric vehicles under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Antidumping and countervailing duty petitioners, led by Atlas Tube, said the Commerce Department properly used adverse facts available against exporter Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co. in three anti-circumvention inquiries for untimely submitting questionnaire responses in a "straightforward case" (Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 23-00248).

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision upending the Chevron principle of deferring to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes requires a more demanding review of the Office of Foreign Assets Control's use of the Global Magnitsky Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act, sanctioned Mir Rahman Rahmani and his son, Hafi Ajmal Rahmani, argued (Mir Rahman Rahmani v. Janet Yellen, D.D.C. # 24-00285).

Importers Yellow Bird and Vantage Point filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade July 18 arguing that a 1955 Jaguar race car, driven in competitions by multiple Australian racing drivers, is a collector's item, not a used motor vehicle (Yellowbird Enterprises v. U.S., CIT # 24-00121).

Benin and Sierra Leone formally accepted the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies July 19, bringing to 80 the number of countries that have accepted the deal. The WTO requires 30 more formal acceptances to reach the two-thirds of membership threshold needed for the agreement to be able to enter into force.

The facilitator of the negotiations on World Trade Organization dispute settlement reform, Mauritius' Usha Dwarka-Canabady, said that members have made progress on the "issue of accessibility" but that the topic of the appeals process "might take a bit more time," the WTO said. Reporting on the state of the negotiations on July 18, Dwarka-Canabady said talks must "accelerate."

The Court of International Trade in a confidential decision July 17 sustained in part and remanded in part the Commerce Department's final determination in the antidumping duty investigation on preserved mushrooms from the Netherlands. Judge M. Miller Baker said he will make the decision public on July 25. U.S. mushroom producer Giorgio Foods contested Commerce's pick of Germany as the third-country comparison market and its decision not to use adverse facts available against respondent Prochamp (see 2307240018) (Giorgio Foods v. U.S., CIT # 23-00133).

Mandatory antidumping duty respondent Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., along with 25 plywood exporters, urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to uphold the Court of International Trade's decision giving Chengen and the separate rate respondents a zero percent dumping margin in the AD investigation on hardwood plywood from China (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1258).