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

Mexican steel company Deacero S.A.P.I. de C.V. and its U.S. affiliate moved to stay proceedings in its case at the Court of International Trade pending the appeal of a related matter at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 12 stay motion. Deacero wants action halted in its case until the Universal Steel Prod., Inc. et al. v. U.S. case has a decision at the Federal Circuit. While Deacero's case challenges the Commerce Department's findings in an antidumping duty review on the grounds that the agency's treatment of Section 232 duties paid by Deacero as ordinary customs duties and deduction from U.S. price are unsupported, the Universal Steel case has broader implications and would eliminate the need for Deacero to litigate the claims.

Ribbons exporter Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. did not benefit from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, the Commerce Department said in Aug. 13 remand results filed at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's new determination, filed under respectful protest, led to the reconsideration of its use of adverse facts available in a countervailing duty review and subsequent exclusion of the AFA rate assigned to the EBCP for Yama. Commerce did, however, continue to find that the provision of synthetic yarn and caustic soda for "less than adequate remuneration" did meet the specificity requirement of the law and are deemed countervailable subsidies (Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. v. U.S., CIT #19-00047).

The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood will appeal a Court of International Trade opinion in an anti-circumvention inquiry involving antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the coalition said in a notice of appeal. In the case, the Commerce Department eventually came to find that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports from China were not later-developed merchandise and therefore did not circumvent the AD/CVD orders (see 2107210028). The coalition was the petitioner for the anti-circumvention inquiry and served as the defendant-intervenor in the CIT case (Shelter Forest International Acquisition, Inc. et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #19-00212).

NetJets Aviation, a commercial airline operator, filed an amended complaint on Aug. 11 at the Court of International Trade, dropping its claim under Section 1581(i) after the Department of Justice moved to partially dismiss the case. Following litigation on the issue (see 2108110027), NJA simply moved forward and dropped the claim, succumbing to DOJ's view of the proper jurisdictional home for the case. Judge Claire Kelly also issued an order in the case reserving its decision on the jurisdiction questions in the case but extending the deadline for the U.S. to respond to the amended complaint until Aug. 31. The case is over whether NJA has to issue customs user fees to its passengers (NetJets Aviation, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00142).

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts was right to allow a new trial for Joseph Baptiste in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said in an Aug. 9 opinion. Concurring with the district court that Baptiste's counsel was of such deficient performance to allow a retrial, a three-judge panel at the circuit court denied the U.S.'s appeal of the decision to run the trial back.

Husch Blackwell and one of its international trade partners, Jeffrey Neeley, committed legal malpractice when they went too far in a filing at the Court of International Trade subjecting imports of wood furniture to antidumping duties, Wego Chemical Group said in an Aug. 9 complaint at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A motion filed by Neeley mistakenly requesting an injunction be lifted on all entries subject to an antidumping duty period led to Wego needlessly paying over $325,000 in customs duties, the company said (Wego Chemical Group Inc. v. Husch Blackwell LLP et al., S.D.N.Y. #21-06689).

The Commerce Department backed its own remand results in two Court of International Trade cases, citing the plaintiffs' agreement that the remand complied with the court's orders in two comments on the redeterminations. The cases, one challenging an antidumping duty scope ruling on a subset of steel trailer wheels from China, and the other challenging the countervailing duty scope ruling for the same goods, concern the date of imposition for the duties. In May, the court told Commerce to move the imposition date for the duties to the date of publication of the final determination rather than the date of the preliminary determination (see 2105180062). Commerce did so in its remand results (see 2106160026), also indicating that it will issue instructions to CBP to exclude plaintiffs Trans Texas Tire and Zhejiang Jingu Co.'s entries of physical vapor deposition chrome process wheels (PVD chrome wheels) entered between Feb. 25, 2019, and June 24, 2019, from the scope of the investigation (Trans Texas Tire, LLC v. United States, CIT #19-00188, -00189).

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

Plaintiffs in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade, led by Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, signed off on the Commerce Department's remand results in Aug. 11 comments, finding them in accordance with the CIT's instructions. The case stems from an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring from China. Following multiple court decisions and remand results (see 2107130080), Fine Furniture's case was stayed pending the results of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision which eventually found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping duty order. Since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD order received de minimis duty rates in Commerce's final determination, Fine Furniture was removed from the review. This led to the AD rate for all separate rate respondents falling to zero percent (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #14-00135).