A Temporary Storage Agreement should end when it is obvious a party to the agreement is no longer seeking court judgment, DOJ said in a Nov. 3 response motion at the Court of International Trade (Virtus Nutrition v. United States, CIT #21-00165).

Chief Judge Kimberly Moore at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, during Nov. 3 oral argument, questioned plaintiff-appellant M S International's (MSI's) position that the Commerce Department failed to include quartz surface product (QSP) fabricators as part of the domestic industry for quartz surface products when initiating the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on QSPs from India (Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1077).

Antidumping duty petitioners submitted various supplemental authorities in Amsted Rail Co.'s case over its former counsel's purported "betrayal" in using a former client's information against it in a later injury proceeding at the International Trade Commission. The petitioners, collectively referred to as the Coalition of Freight Coupler Producers, included a declaration from Georgetown University Law Center ethics professor Michael Frisch discussing whether ARC's former counsel, Daniel Pickard, now-partner at Buchanan Ingersoll, committed an ethics violation. Frisch said that the D.C. Bar Rule 1.9 concerning conflicts of interest does not apply to ARC since the only party affected by the injury proceeding is ASF-K de Mexico, a Mexican maquiladora factory affiliated with ARC that did not formerly employ Pickard, and that ARC's lawsuit is an "abuse of the litigation process" (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States International Trade Commission, CIT #22-00307).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Nov. 2 oral argument questioned importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, over its jurisdictional grounds to challenge a CBP decision, given that the company failed to file a protest. SIS argued that it didn't need to file a protest to challenge the liquidation of its entries, given that there was nothing to protest within 180 days of liquidation. At oral argument, Judges Timothy Dyk, Richard Taranto and Todd Hughes probed this position, with Hughes in particular expressing doubt over the claim, given the finality surrounding CBP's liquidation of imports (Acquisition 362 v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1161).

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Plaintiffs Amsted Rail Co. (ARC) and ASF-K Mexico again took to the Court of International Trade, this time against the Commerce Department, in a bid to get the trade court to disqualify its former law firm from further participation in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on freight rail couplers and parts thereof from China and Mexico. ARC and ASF-K said that Commerce's refusal to disqualify Buchanan Ingersoll and timely rescind access to business proprietary information (BPI) violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the plaintiff's right to due process (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00316).

CBP announced that it has initiated and consolidated two Enforce and Protect Act investigations on whether Double L Group, LLC (Double L) and Manufacturing Network Inc. (MNI) evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on Chinese-origin steel grating, according to a notice dated Oct. 26. The investigations were launched on July 21, following allegations by Hog Slat that Double L and MNI misclassified imported steel grating as non-covered merchandise.

Unreliable lab reports by CBP call into question suspended cases, regardless of the outcome of a test case, New Image Global, Inc., argued in two separate Oct. 28 complaints to the Court of International Trade (New Image Global Inc. v. United States, CIT #14-00271 and 15-00316).

By deducting the value of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) -- tradeable credits issued by the EPA -- from antidumping duty respondent Wilmar Trading's export price, the Commerce Department "penalizes Wilmar for having to navigate different regulatory regimes for biodiesel in the United States and Indonesia," Wilmar argued in comments on Commerce's remand results at the Court of International Trade. The result is an arbitrarily inflated dumping margin derived from Commerce's approach, which is separate from Wilmar's "actual commercial experience," the brief said (Wilmar Trading Pte Ltd. v. United States, CIT Consol. #18-00121).

There is no basis for the Court of International Trade to reconsider its decision to uphold the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis (DPA) to root out "masked" dumping or its inclusion of respondent SeAH Steel Corp.'s inventory valuation losses in its general and administrative (G&A) expense calculation, the U.S. said. Replying to SeAH's motion for rehearing at CIT, the government argued that since Commerce has found on remand in the key Stupp Corp. v. U.S. case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit called into question the use of the Cohen's d test that the agency properly used the test, there are no grounds to contest CIT's move to uphold the DPA (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT #19-00086).