Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration will be allowed to intervene in a Court of International Trade countervailing duty case on silicon metal from Kazakhstan, a July 6 order said. In Kazakhstan's initial attempt, Judge Leo Gordon had found the trade ministry failed to comply with court rules governing intervention, including failure to state the issues it wished to litigate. The ministry made the corrections in a “renewed motion to intervene as plaintiff-intervenor” but faced pushback from the petitioners in the CVD case, who argued that the renewed motion was untimely (see 2107060031). The Justice Department did not oppose the ministry's intervention.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's decision in the 15th antidumping administrative review of fish fillets from Vietnam that I.D.I. International Development and Investment Corp. failed to rebut the presumption of government control, in a July 6 order. The opinion in the case is confidential and will remain as such until Judge M. Miller Baker considers redactions for business confidential information with the litigants. Responses to the confidential opinion are due by July 20.

Changji Esquel Textile (CJE), a Hong Kong-based apparel company and part of the Esquel group of companies, filed a July 6 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to have its placement on the Commerce Department's Entity List dropped (Changji Esquel Textile Co. Ltd. et al. v. Gina M. Raimondo et al., D.C. Cir. #21-01798). The Trump administration put CJE on the list last year for alleged practices of using forced labor from the Muslim Uyghur minority population in China's Xinjiang region.

The Court of International Trade stayed a tariff classification case over printed circuit board assemblies used in audio-visual transmission equipment, in a July 6 order, pending the Justice Department's consideration of a settlement offer from importer Plexus Corp. CIT recently sent the case to trial after it found that it couldn't determine whether PCBAs imported by Plexus are principally used for televisions and dutiable at 2.9% or principally used for other devices, including computers and smartphones, and duty free (see 2012230084).

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Trade and Integration wanted to intervene in a countervailing duty case on silicon metal from Kazakhstan in the Court of International Trade in June. It was denied for failing to comply with CIT Rule 24 -- the rules governing intervention. In particular, the defendant-intervenors and petitioners in the underlying CVD case, Globe Specialty Metals and Mississippi Silicon, said the trade ministry failed to state the issues it wanted to litigate (see 2106110029). Now, the ministry is back in CIT, filing a "renewed motion to intervene as plaintiff-intervenor" on June 16 (Tau-Ken Temir LLP et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00173).

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

By subjecting aluminum extrusion importer Global Aluminum Distributor to two antidumping and countervailing duty evasion investigations for the same conduct and entries, CBP violated Global Aluminum's rights to due process, the importer said. Filing a July 2 complaint in the Court of International Trade, Global Aluminum called out the customs agency for breaking "long-standing principles of fundamental fairness" by including the importer in multiple evasion investigations under the Enforce and Protect Act -- a process already riddled with due process violations, according to the complaint (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00312).

The Commerce Department's decision to assume 24 working days per month for calculating surrogate labor rates, instead of 21 days, in an antidumping administrative review is unsupported, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a June 24 motion for judgment in the Court of International Trade. The coalition said the agency failed to properly explain its switch to 24 working days after originally relying on 21 days in its preliminary determination (Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood v. United States, CIT #20-03930).

Tools of the trade returned after temporary use abroad do not have to been actually used to be eligible for duty-free treatment under subheading 9801.00.85 Porsche Motorsports North America, said in a reply brief filed June 25. CBP has ruled in the past that it’s enough for goods to be made available for use to qualify for duty-free treatment, PMNA said in the brief, filed in support of its motion for judgment in a case at the Court of International Trade (Porsche Motorsports North America, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 16-00182).

The Commerce Department acted in conflict with its established practice by finding that window wall system kits are outside the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee said in a June 25 complaint. In the scope ruling, Commerce held that Reflection Window + Wall's window wall system kits qualify for the "finished goods kits" exclusion of the orders. This determination is not accurate, the coalition said, since the window wall system kits are not assembled as is into a finished product and are instead "generally assembled, attached, and sealed in the field and can interlock and cover large portions of the exterior of a building" (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. United States, CIT #21-00253).