Jacob Kopnick

Importer Amsted Rail Co. and its Mexican maquiladora affiliate ASF-K Mexico told the Court of International Trade on July 15 that the Commerce Department's failure to disqualify its former counsel, Buchanan Ingersoll partner Daniel Pickard, invalidates the agency's antidumping duty investigation on freight rail couplers from Mexico. Filing a motion for judgment, ARC said Pickard "betrayed" the company by using its information against it in an AD petition and that it didn't consent to Pickard representing an opposing party (Amsted Rail Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00242).

The Commerce Department on July 12 released a proposed rule updating various aspects of its antidumping and countervailing duty regulations. The agency said the changes largely "codify existing procedures and methodologies" and also "create or revise" provisions related to the "collection of cash deposits," use of AD rates on nonmarket economy nations, calculation of an all-others' rate, respondent selection and "attribution of subsidies received by cross-owned input producers and utility providers to producers of subject merchandise."

The Court of International Trade in a confidential July 15 order denied customs broker Seko Customs Brokerage's application for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against CBP's temporary suspension of the company from the Entry Type 86 pilot and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program. Judge Claire Kelly said she intends to issue a public version of the opinion "on or shortly after" July 23, giving the litigants until July 22 to review the confidential information in the decision (Seko Customs Brokerage v. U.S., CIT # 24-00097).

Dutch construction equipment maker Dieseko Group paid over $1.94 million to settle allegations that it violated sanctions on Russia, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service announced, according to an unofficial translation. Dieseko was found by Dutch authorities to have "sold pile drivers and associated parts" for the construction of a bridge in Crimea from 2015-16 and also provided technical assistance for the goods.

Countervailing duty respondent Riverside Plywood and its cross-owned affiliate Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. said the Commerce Department improperly used adverse facts available to find that all of its input suppliers were government authorities (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00106).

Countervailing duty petitioner Rebar Trade Action Coalition said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has the authority to reinstate the Commerce Department's original determination attributing subsidies received by an exporter's cross-owed input supplier to the exporter itself (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1431).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 15 issued its mandate in an antidumping duty review on Indian frozen warmwater shrimp after it affirmed the Court of International Trade's decision to sustain the Commerce Department's use of antidumping duty respondent Z.A. Sea Foods' Vietnamese sales to calculate normal value (see 2406070034). The decision was issued without an accompanying opinion. The trade court said petitioner Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee failed to flesh out its claim that, since ZASF's Vietnamese sales were not actually for consumption in Vietnam, Commerce couldn't use them to set normal value (see 2212070036) (Z.A. Sea Foods Private Ltd. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1469).

The EU General Court last week annulled three European Council decisions sanctioning Vladimir Rashevsky, former CEO and director of mineral fertilizer giant EuroChem. The court didn't consider the most recent listing decision imposing sanctions on Rashevsky.

The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 doesn't require payouts of interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, to affected domestic producers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said July 15. Judges Alan Lourie, Kara Stoll and Tiffany Cunningham said that the statute only provides for interest that's "earned on" antidumping and countervailing duties and "assessed under" the associated AD or CVD order.

Importer Atlas Power is attempting to use a U.S. request to withdraw an admission of fact in a customs case to root out the government's "alternative classification" of the graphics processing units at issue, the U.S. said following Atlas' opposition to the U.S. motion (Atlas Power v. United States, CIT # 23-00084).