CIT Consolidates Section 232 Denied Exclusion Challenges to Discuss Voluntary Remand

The Court of International Trade consolidated six challenges to the Commerce Department's denials of Section 232 steel and aluminum exclusion requests in an Aug. 17 order. Judge M. Miller Baker said the cases brought by North American Interpipe, Evraz Inc., Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, AM/NS Calvert, California Steel Industries and Valbruna Slater Stainless will be jointly considered for the "limited purpose of resolving the motions to remand."

In each case, Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security issued a blanket rejection of the exclusion request and then filed for a voluntary remand to conduct an independent review of each request once judicial relief was sought. Each of the plaintiffs in the six cases expressed concern over the government's broad remand request, with an especially fiery response coming from ATI and CSI (see 2108170072). Seeing as each remand request and procedural and fairness concerns are shared among the cases, Baker consolidated them to sort through the issue of how to proceed.

"All of the plaintiffs express concern about the government either expressly or impliedly taking a position that the relief Plaintiffs seek -- a refund of duties Plaintiffs claim they were wrongly compelled to pay due to denial of their requests for exclusions from tariffs imposed by the President under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, 19 U.S.C. § 1862 -- may not be available as to Plaintiffs’ entries that have already liquidated, and they note that the government’s requests for voluntary remands may be futile if the Department of Commerce will simply deny relief as to entries that have already liquidated," Baker said.

The judge ordered that any plaintiff wishing to join Calvert's request for court-annexed mediation shall do so within 10 days of the order and that the government shall file a single consolidated reply brief by Sept. 7 that must address "at a minimum, (a) its position on the request for court-annexed mediation, (b) its unequivocal position as to whether the court lacks the power to grant relief as to liquidated entries, and (c) its position as to why voluntary remand is appropriate as to liquidated entries if in fact the government does contend the court lacks the power to grant relief as to those entries."

(N. Am. Interpipe, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #20-03825) (Evraz Inc. NA, et al. v. U.S., CIT #20-03869) (Allegheny Technologies Incorporated et al. v. U.S., CIT #20-03923) (California Steel Industries, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00015) (AM/NS Calvert LLC v. U.S., CIT #21-00005) (Valbruna Slater Stainless, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00027).