The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to hit affiliated antidumping respondents Ghigi 1870 and Pasta Zara with an adverse inference over their U.S. payment dates in Feb. 28 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. However, the agency dropped the adverse inference on the U.S. sales for which Commerce verified the correct date. The result, if sustained, is a weighted-average dumping margin of 91.74% for Ghigi/Zara (Ghigi 1870 S.P.A. v. United States, CIT #20-00023).

Steel giant U.S. Steel argued that it should be able to file an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to support antidumping duty petitioner Welspun Tubular in the company's bid to get a full court rehearing on a key AD question. The rehearing request concerns whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test. U.S. Steel says it can address the importance of PMS provisions in proceedings involving products not made by Welspun (Hyundai Steel Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1748).

Neither importer Cyber Power Systems (USA) Inc. nor the U.S. succeeded in persuading the Court of International Trade that their side was right in a tiff over the country of origin for shipments of uninterruptible power supplies and a surge voltage protector. Judge Leo Gordon, in a Feb. 24 order, denied both parties' motions for judgment, ordering the litigants to pick dates on which to set up a trial.

The Court of International Trade denied Wheatland Tube Company's bid for a preliminary injunction in a case seeking to compel CBP to respond to requests for information and a tariff classification ruling relating to Section 232 evasion since Wheatland has not shown a likelihood to succeed on the merits. CBP already responded to Wheatland's requests, so the plaintiff has not shown how it could succeed in the case, Judge Timothy Stanceu said.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed a case brought by Indian steel company JSW Steel that alleged a conspiracy by four U.S. steel companies to engage in a boycott of JSW via the U.S.'s Section 232 national security tariffs. In the Feb. 17 order, Judge Keith Ellison said that JSW "failed to plausibly allege a conspiracy" regarding the defendant, and didn't sufficiently allege that the defendants knew any specific information about the company's business prospects (JSW Steel (USA) v. Nucor Corp., S.D. Texas #21-01842).

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A flexible packaging material imported by Amcor Flexibles Kreuzlingen is classifiable as "other" backed aluminum foil, rather than aluminum foil decorated with a pattern or design, the Court of International Trade said in a Feb. 22 decision. Judge Gary Katzmann said that since the text on the foil is communicative text and not a pattern, Amcor's suggested alternative Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading was the proper one, though he rejected the HTS heading most preferred by Amcor.

The Court of International Trade rejected on Feb. 18 a group of Chinese exporter's arguments that a glass input for aluminum extrusions is not countervailable since it ties in to non-subject merchandise. Since the plaintiffs' arguments are "largely conclusory statements" and not backed by evidence on the record, Judge Leo Gordon said that the Commerce Department properly found that the glass inputs were countervailable.

The Supreme Court should deny a bid to review the president's authority under the Section 232 national security tariff provision, the U.S. said in a Feb. 17 reply brief. Arguing that greater deference and flexibility are accorded the president in a national security context, the Department of Justice told the nation's highest court that the president lawfully adjusted tariff action under Section 232 beyond procedural timelines. The Supreme Court also previously ruled that Section 232 isn't an improper delegation of authority and the petitioners haven't shown this decision to be wrongly decided, the brief said (Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, U.S. #21-721).

The U.S. Court of International Trade should deny the Department of Justice's motion to add a November 2018 investigatory “update” report from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to the administrative record in the Section 301 litigation (see 2202160033) because the government has failed to show that USTR “actually relied on or considered” the report when it was deciding to impose either the Lists 3 or List 4A tariffs on Chinese imports, Akin Gump lawyers for sample-case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products said in a partial opposition brief filed Feb. 16.