The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a Court of International Trade ruling dismissing an importer's challenge of CBP's assessment of antidumping and countervailing duties, for improper jurisdiction, in a July 14 opinion. The Federal Circuit found that TR International Trading Company, which filed its case under the trade court's Section 1581(i) "residual" jurisdiction provision, could have instead challenged a denied protest under 1581(a) or a scope ruling under 1581(c), rendering Section 1581(i) unavailable.

The Court of International Trade stayed proceedings in a case brought by Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, challenging the denial of its request for an exclusion from Section 232 duties, in a July 12 order. In the joint motion requesting the stay, counsel for Allegheny said that the government defense reported to the plaintiffs that it was "engaged in internal discussions concerning disposition of this case." The government plans to wrap up the discussions and discuss the results with the plaintiffs in the following week, and said that any resulting status report or motion would be filed "as soon as practicable." Proceedings in the case are stayed until July 21 (Allegheny Technologies Incorporated et al. v. U.S., CIT #20-03923).

Importer Amoena USA Corp. wants the Court of International Trade to find that its mastectomy brassieres of Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 6212.10.90, dutiable at 16.9%, should properly be classified as the duty-free subheading of 9021.39.0000, according to a July 14 complaint. The former subheading covers "other brassieres of manmade fiber," while the importer's preferred subheading covers "Orthopedic appliances artificial parts of the body; parts and accessories thereof: Other artificial parts of the body and parts and accessories thereof: Other." Mastectomy brassieres are an accessory for artificial breasts for women who have had mastectomies. The brassieres are used to hold the artificial breast in position and are predominantly sold in medical settings, the complaint said. Since they are "principally used as accessories of artificial breast forms" they should be classified in Chapter 90 of the HTS, Amoena said (Amoena USA Corp. v. United States, CIT #20-00100).

The Court of International Trade on July 12 upheld the Commerce Department's pick of Romania over Malaysia as a surrogate country in an antidumping case, but sent back to the agency the resulting financial ratio calculation of a Romanian company. Since Commerce failed to address the concerns of mandatory respondent Ancientree Cabinets, Judge Gary Katzmann directed Commerce to reconsider Ancientree's objections. Other aspects of the investigation under contention, namely the selection of Romania over Malaysia and Commerce's picks for product input surrogate values, were upheld by Katzmann.

The Department of Justice's argument that the president should be granted deference to determine whether the procedural boxes have been ticked when eliminating a tariff exemption would eliminate a key check on executive power, counsel for the Solar Energy Industries Association said during July 13 oral argument. The proceedings before Court of International Trade Judge Gary Katzmann come amid SEIA's challenge to President Donald Trump's revocation of an exemption to Section 201 safeguard tariffs on bifacial solar panels (Solar Energy Industries Association et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03941).

The Commerce Department submitted its remand results to the Court of International Trade on July 12 in an antidumping administrative review on multilayered wood flooring, dropping one of the mandatory respondents from the review in response to a ruling in a separate case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited, et al. v. United States, CIT # 14-00135). Following multiple court decisions and remand results, proceedings in Fine Furniture's case were stayed pending the results of the Federal Circuit appeal in Changzhou Hawd Flooring Co., Ltd. v. United States. The eventual decision found that Fine Furniture is not subject to the antidumping order since the mandatory respondents in the underlying AD order received de minimis duty rates in Commerce's final determination (see 2106020069). CIT lifted the stay and remanded the case to exclude Fine Furniture from the review and recalculate the rate for the separate respondents. As a result of Fine Furniture's departure from the review, and the other two mandatory respondents in the review having zero percent antidumping duty margins, the AD rate for all separate rate respondents would fall to zero percent, should the rate be sustained.

The Commerce Department filed its remand results in the Court of International Trade on July 12 in a case over the 2016-17 administrative review of the antdiumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea. The results mirror the redeterminations made in another case filed by the same company, SeAH Steel Co., in which Commerce dropped its finding of a particular market situation (see 2107010048). After the court said that there was not enough evidence to support the agency's finding that the Korean steel market was heavily subsidized and there was a global glut of key inputs for the oil tubes from China, Commerce no longer applied the PMS adjustment, but noted its disagreement with the court over how to weigh the evidence (SeAH Steel Co. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results in the fourth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on large power transformers from Korea, in a July 9 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett upheld the results after Commerce dropped its adverse inference against Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. and Hyosung Corporation when calculating their antidumping duty rate. The result left both respondents in the review with a zero percent duty rate.

In a pair of decisions, the Court of International Trade upheld two remand results that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty orders on steel nails from China and Vietnam. In one, CIT sustained the Commerce Department's third remand results that strike pin anchors are not within the scope of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from China, in a July 12 opinion. The decision applied recent precedent from a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether masonry anchors imported by OMG are subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel nails from Vietnam (see 2008280039). In another July 12 opinion, the court sustained Commerce remand results finding that Fastenal Company Purchasing's zinc and nylon anchors "do not fall within the scope of Commerce’s antidumping order on certain steel nails from China."

The Commerce Department was permitted to apply "facts otherwise available" in an antidumping duty investigation where it was unable to verify certain information due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Justice said in a July 2 brief to the Court of International Trade. Responding to plaintiffs, led by Bonney Forge Corp., DOJ said that the pandemic and travel restrictions prohibited Commerce from conducting on-site verifications during an investigation on forged steel fittings from India (Bonney Forge Corporation et al. v. United States, CIT #20-03837).