The Court of International Trade on Aug. 16 denied a motion by importer Wanxiang America to dismiss a penalty case related to its alleged misclassification and failure to pay associated antidumping duties on tapered roller bearings.

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The Commerce Department legally used antidumping duty respondent Dillinger France's normal books and records as facts otherwise available by reallocating production costs between prime and non-prime plate in the AD investigation on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from France, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Aug. 15 opinion.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller must respond to allegations of forced labor used in imported cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire by seven major chocolate companies, the International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) said in its Aug. 15 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The suit aims to force DHS and CBP to issue a decision in response to a 2020 petition filed by IRAdvocates along with Corporate Accountability Lab, and the University of California Irvine Law School's Human Rights Clinic (UCI) (International Rights Advocates v. Alejandro Mayorkas and Troy Miller, CIT # 23-00165).

The Court of International Trade lacks the authority to prevent CBP from collecting Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from importer PrimeSource Building Products given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling upholding the duties, the government argued in a recent brief. Responding to PrimeSource's request for a stay of the appellate court's mandate pending its appeal of the suit to the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. said the Federal Circuit's mandate "could not be clearer": President Donald Trump's expansion of the duties to cover steel and aluminum "derivatives" is lawful and CBP's collection of the duties proper (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., CIT # 20-00032).

CBP miscalculated antidumping duty payments on imported crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from Taiwain, ignored prior disclosure payments by importer URE NSP, and then partially denied a protest seeking those refunds, said URE NSP in an Aug. 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (URE NSP Corporation v. U.S. CBP, CIT # 23-00154). The company asked the court to order a refund of about $311,00 plus interest for overpayment of duties.

Hong Kong-based apparel company Chagji Esquel Textile (CJE) and the Commerce Department filed a joint stipulation of dismissal on Aug. 11 in CJE's suit challenging its placement on the Entity List. The parties most recently filed a joint status report in June as they discussed the conditions related to the End-User Review Committee's July 2021 decision to drop the company from the Entity List (Changji Esquel Textile Co. v. Gina M. Raimondo, D.D.C. # 21-01798).

The Commerce Department can't "short circuit the procedural requirements for new agency action" by declaring that a questionnaire can take the place of on-site verification in an antidumping duty proceeding after initially saying that it can't, the Court of International Trade ruled in an Aug. 11 opinion. The agency's change of heart, issued on remand, cuts against the Supreme Court of the U.S. finding in Dept. of Homeland Secuity v. Regents of the Univ. of California, in which the court said that on remand an agency can either take new agency action or further explain its position.

CBP's attempts to collect a 14-year-old bond for antidumping duties on Chinese garlic shouldn't be thrown out because a change in tactic by the government didn't fundamentally alter the responsibilities of the bond issuer, DOJ argued in an Aug. 10 reply at the Court of International Trade (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance, CIT # 20-03628).

Importer NLMK Pennsylvania and the U.S. jointly requested a stay in a suit on the Commerce Department's refusal to grant the company exclusions for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties so that the parties can "focus their efforts on resolving this matter through settlement." Filing a joint motion Aug. 9 for stay at the Court of International Trade, the parties said they have been engaging in settlement talks and an agreement has been reached "in principle" (NLMK Pennsylvania v. U.S., CIT # 21-00507).