Jacob Kopnick

The U.S. and antidumping duty petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire defended the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test to detect "masked" dumping, in a pair of reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Taiwanese steel nail exporters, led by PT Enterprise, challenged Commerce's use of a simple average for the denominator of the Cohen's d coefficient instead of a weighted average (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1556).

The U.S. acknowledged on Aug. 16 that CBP mistakenly liquidated certain tire entries subject to an injunction from the Court of International Trade. Filing a status report, the government said the Commerce Department "took corrective action," telling CBP to "promptly return to unliquidated status any entries that had been inadvertently liquidated in violation of the Court’s order" (Titan Tire Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00233).

Chinese semiconductor equipment maker Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) sued the Pentagon last week for wrongly designating the firm as a Chinese military company. AMEC claimed that its designation violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 and the U.S. Constitution (Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment v. United States, D.D.C. # 24-02357).

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 16 said it's unreasonable for the Commerce Department not to attempt verification of an exporter's certificates proclaiming nonuse of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, despite the exporter not having submitted such certificates for all its customers.

U.S.-Iranian national Jeffrey Nader was charged Aug. 14 with conspiring to illegally export U.S.-made aircraft parts, including components used in military aircraft, to Iran, DOJ announced.

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Turkish exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) will appeal its three separate cases filed at the Court of International Trade regarding the sunset review of an antidumping duty order on hot-rolled steel flat products from Turkey (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. U.S. International Trade Commission, CIT #'s 22-00349, -00350, -00351).

Importer CVB filed a stipulation of dismissal in its case challenging the Commerce Department's scope decision finding that the antidumping duty order on wooden bedroom furniture from China doesn't cover seven models of wood platform beds imported by Zinus. Most recently in the case, the U.S. argued that CVB didn't have standing to challenge the scope decision because CVB is an importer and can't show that it was injured by the scope ruling (see 2407160052). The government said none of CVB's goods is at issue. It said the importer challenges the determination that another company's entries are outside the scope of the order, but "it has failed to demonstrate what stake it has in this determination." Counsel for CVB didn't immediately respond to a request for comment (CVB v. U.S., CIT # 24-00036).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Aug. 15 sustained the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against exporter Unicatch Industrial Co. for failing to submit adequate cost reconciliation information in the 2015-16 review of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from Taiwan.

Last week, the Court of International Trade said anti-forced labor advocacy group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) didn't have standing to challenge CBP's inaction in responding to a petition to ban cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire, alleging that it's harvested by child labor (see 2408080049). Speaking with Trade Law Daily, Terrence Collingsworth, counsel for IRAdvocates, said he intends to appeal the decision but, should that fail, he is ready to bring alternative plaintiffs before the court who may more clearly establish standing.