The Court of International Trade on Aug. 23 upheld the Commerce Department's deduction of Section 232 duties paid by Turkish exporter Noksel Celik Boru Sanayi from its U.S. price in the 2018-19 review of the antidumping duty order on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from Turkey. Judge Jane Restani said she saw "no reason to vary" this finding, as previously made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, regarding the government's move to raise the duties solely on Turkish goods.

The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF) violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide any rationale for adding Chinese printer cartridge manufacturer Ninestar Corp., along with eight of its Zhuhai-based subsidiaries, to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, the companies, led by Ninestar, argued (Ninestar Corp., et al. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).

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Statements from CBP employees that they witnessed the destruction of documents during a site visit as part of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on importer Aspects Furniture International, as well as other discrepancies found in many of Aspects' entry documents, justified "wholesale adverse inferences against all" of the importers entries, the Court of International Trade ruled on Aug. 22.

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 21 upheld the Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government's free provision of port usage rights at the Port of Incheon provided a countervailable benefit for exporter Hyundai Steel. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that Commerce reasonably found it should conduct a revenue forgone analysis instead of a less than adequate remuneration analysis since Hyundai's non-payment of port usage fees involved a "type of financial contribution from revenue foregone" instead of the provision of services.

The statute of limitations for CBP to collect on customs bonds runs six years from the date of the underlying entry's liquidation, not from the date that CBP demanded payment, the Court of International Trade said in an opinion released publicly on Aug. 22, rejecting CBP's bid to collect on a 20-year-old customs bond.

Mediation was unsuccessful in a case from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman against three of her colleagues' investigation into the judge's fitness to continue serving on the court. Per a joint status report submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the parties are looking to continue briefing on Newman's motion for a preliminary injunction against the Federal Circuit Judicial Council's order barring Newman from receiving new cases (Hon. Pauline Newman v. Hon. Kimberly Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).

The Commerce Department failed to consider the "reliance interests" of antidumping petitioners led by Bonney Forge Co. when sticking by its decision to find that questionnaires issued in lieu of on-site verification satisfied the statute's requirement for verification, the Court of International Trade ruled on Aug. 21. Judge Stephen Vaden said that while past practice "is not an inescapable straitjacket," an agency must put a "reasoned explanation on the record" in compliance with the rules established by the Supreme Court in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California.

Antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are now set to take effect in June 2024, after the Commerce Department continued to find in final determinations announced Aug. 18 that imports from the four Southeast Asian countries are circumventing AD/CVD on solar cells from China (A-570-979/C-570-980).

The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 17 opinion appeared to leave the door open for the government to collect additional duties in court cases filed by importers challenging denied protests. In the latest in a series of recently issued decisions finding the government can't file counterclaims in denied protest cases, Judge Gary Katzmann reclassified a government counterclaim as a defense, but said importer Second Nature Designs may be liable for more duties if that defense prevails.