Steel importer NLMK Pennsylvania opposed U.S. Steel Corporation's bid to file an amicus curiae brief in a case on the Commerce Department's refusal to grant the importer exclusion from Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, arguing that there is no role for an amicus at this stage of the case. Telling the court that U.S. Steel is "donning sheep's clothing" in "asking for permission to enter as an amicus," even though the parties "wish to settle their dispute," meaning there is no issue in controversy at play (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT # 21-00507).

Antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings at the Commerce Department will be temporarily stopped in the event of a U.S. government shutdown due to a failure in Congress to appropriate funds, lawyers from global firm Veneable wrote. Enforce and Protect Act allegations of AD/CVD evasion also won't be investigated during the shutdown, according to the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America.

The Court of International Trade's "unique and unprecedented interpretation" of an "other" provision in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule comes from a "false premise" that would greatly expand its scope throughout the HTS, importer Nature's Touch Frozen Foods argued in its Sept. 27 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Seeking its preferred classification of frozen fruit mixtures, the importer said the trade court's reading would also "greatly limit operation of the provisions in [General Rules of Interpretation] 3(b) and (c) which are designed to classify mixtures" (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West) v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2093).

The Commerce Department amended its regulations on administrative protective orders and serving documents in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings. The changes make service of public documents, public versions of business proprietary documents and proprietary documents via electronic transmission the default method of alternative service "when service cannot be effectuated on ACCESS or when ACCESS is unavailable."

The Commerce Department incorrectly found that the South Korean government's provision of port-usage rights to countervailing duty respondent Hyundai Steel Co. was a countervailable benefit, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Hyundai built the port in exchange for the right to collect third-party fees, so the provision of port-usage rights might not be a benefit but rather a payment for "consideration," as used in contract law terms.

The U.S. urged the Supreme Court of the United States to reject importer PrimeSource Building Products' petition for a writ of certiorari in a case on the expansion of Section 232 duties onto "derivative" products, telling the high court that PrimeSource's separation of powers claims fall flat. While the importer said the case can give the court a chance to reconsider its approach to nondelegation, the government argued that, under the principle of stare decisis, the petitioner must identify a "special justification" for revisiting established law, which it has failed to do here (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Sup. Ct. # 23-69).

The Commerce Department properly hit exporter SeAH Steel Corp. with adverse facts available due to its failure to submit information on its use of the Korean Export-Import Bank Performance Guarantee program prior to the countervailing duty investigation period, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion.

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The Commerce Department legally excluded importer Siffron's plastic shelf dividers from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on raw flexible magnets from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that Commerce reasonably determined that the scope language and the (k)(1) sources, including prior scope rulings and a report from the International Trade Commission, established that the dividers didn't belong in the scope of the orders.

Importer Shamrock Building Materials laid out a "myriad of unsupported and unpersuasive arguments" against the Court of International Trade's finding that electrical conduit is properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 7306, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 22 reply brief. The government said the heading, which provides for "other tubes, pipes and hollow profiles" of iron or steel, exactly describes the electrical conduit, and that heading 8547, which covers "electric conduit tubing lined with insulating material," does not fit the bill (Shamrock Building Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1648).