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

A Court of International Trade case over importer Greenlight Organic's alleged fraud in misclassifying its knit garments should be dropped since the statute of limitations ran out, Greenlight said in an Aug. 3 brief. After the court ruled in 2018 that the statute of limitations had some lingering questions, Greenlight said it has procured enough evidence for the court to now rule in its favor and that the U.S.'s fraud case is effectively time barred (United States v. Greenlight Organic, Inc. et al., CIT #17-00031).

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

Shanxi Pioneer Hardware Industrial Co., a plaintiff in a Court of International Trade case over an antidumping administrative review on steel nails from China, will appeal the court's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, it said in an Aug. 4 notice of appeal. Judge Leo Gordon said the Commerce Department has a right to apply total adverse facts available for a mandatory respondent's failure to provide its factors of production data on a control number-specific basis in antidumping cases (see 2106090048). Shanxi was one of the three mandatory respondents for the administrative review and received a total AFA duty margin of 118.04% (Xi'An Metals Import & Export Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00103).

The Commerce Department permissibly relied on total adverse facts available in an antidumping case in light of the Court of International Trade's orders, the Department of Justice argued in July 30 final comments on Commerce's remand results. The respondent, Hung Vuong Group, attempted to submit new factual information in the case before the remand was filed, but no such authority exists for this submission to be accepted, DOJ said (Hung Vuong Corp., et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00055).

The Commerce Department unlawfully selected Malaysia as its surrogate country in an antidumping duty administrative review and the decision should be remanded by the Court of International Trade for reconsideration of selecting Romania instead, plaintiffs in a case challenging the review said in July 30 comments opposing the first remand results. Seeing as the remand itself recognizes the superiority of the Romanian data and acknowledges certain input data from Malaysia is aberrational, the court should hold that Commerce's reliance on Malaysia as the surrogate nation is unlawful, the plaintiffs said (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00007).

The Commerce Department on Aug. 2 continued to find affiliation between the lone respondent in an antidumping duty investigation and one of its U.S. customers after voluntarily remanding the case to consider comments from the respondent. After clearing this procedural hurdle, Commerce maintained this determination in its remand results, accounting for the finding in the duty margin calculation using neutral facts available (OCTAL, Inc. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03697).

Stanley Black & Decker moved to stay proceedings in its case challenging the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff expansion to include steel "derivative" products, in a July 30 filing in the Court of International Trade pending the appeal of the PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S. case (Stanley Black & Decker v. U.S., CIT #21-00262). Seeing as the PrimeSource case, currently working its way through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, is the case on the forefront of the Section 232 steel derivative tariff question, resolution of Stanley's case should wait until its appeal is settled, the company argued. "The ultimate resolution of the PrimeSource case will likely resolve this matter without the necessity of going to trial, or, alternatively, it may narrow the issues in dispute," the brief said. "Therefore, a stay of this matter until 65 days after a final decision in the PrimeSource case would be the most efficient course of action, serve the interests of the parties, and promote judicial economy." Stanley filed its case after PrimeSource was decided (see 2105270086).

The Court of International Trade stayed the liquidation of steel and aluminum "derivative" imports potentially subject to the Section 232 national security tariffs, in an Aug. 2 decision. Due in part to a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, Transpacific Steel LLC et al. v. U.S., CIT permitted the U.S.'s motion for a stay of liquidation for entries that would be assessed the 25% tariff on steel and aluminum derivatives.

The Court of International Trade issued two opinions on Aug. 3 sustaining the Commerce Department's remand results that held that Simpson Strong-Tie Company's split-drive anchors and crimp drive anchors do not fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on certain steel nails from China. Following a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, OMG, Inc. v. United States, Commerce changed its findings for both products to exclude them from the order. The Federal Circuit held in OMG that masonry anchors are not nails and thus excluded from the order. Since Simpson's split-drive and crimp drive anchors are similar, they are also excluded, the court held.