The Tariff Act of 1930 does not provide the exclusive means for recovering evaded antidumping duties, the Anti-Fraud Coalition said in a June 26 amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The False Claims Act stands as a "complementary enforcement mechanism" used when an importer defrauds the U.S. by filing false customs forms to evade duties, the brief said. The coalition filed its brief in an FCA suit on whether Sigma Corp., along with other companies, evaded antidumping duties on welded couplets from China by submitting false customs information (Island Industries v. Sigma Corp., 9th Cir. # 22-55063).

Judge Pauline Newman should continue to be assigned new cases during an investigation into her fitness as a judge, she said in a request for an injunction filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia June 27. Represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, Newman sought an injunction against a decision by the Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit barring her from being assigned new cases, claiming that the ban assaults her "judicial independence" and arguing that it infringes on her due process rights and violates Congress’ “exclusive right to impeach and remove Article III judges” (Pauline Newman v. Kimberly A. Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).

The Commerce Department stuck with its use of the Cohen's d test as part of its effort to root out "masked" dumping in an antidumping review after adding certain academic literature to the record as instructed by the Court of International Trade. Submitting its remand results to the trade court June 27, Commerce said certain statistical assumptions -- normality of the distribution, equal variances and around the same sample size -- don't limit the agency's use of the d test, given that it used the entire population of data as opposed to a sample (Nexteel Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 18-00083).

The White House on June 28 announced its nominations to fill two vacancies on the Court of International Trade.

The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission prematurely carried out the second sunset review of the antidumping duty order on stilbenic optical brightening agents from Taiwan and China, U.S. company Archroma U.S. argued in its June 26 motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade (Archroma U.S., Inc. v. United States, CIT # 22-00354).

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CBP's attempts to collect a 14-year-old bond for antidumping duties on Chinese garlic should be thrown out because the agency's collection policy change "fundamentally altered" the responsibilities of all parties to the bond, said surety Aegis Security Insurance in its June 26 brief at the Court of International Trade (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance, CIT # 20-03628).

The Court of International Trade on June 23 upheld the Commerce Department's decision not to collapse exporter Prosperity Tieh Enterprise Co. with the already-collapsed entity of Yieh Phui Enterprise Co. and Synn Industrial Co. as part of the antidumping duty investigation on corrosion-resistant steel products from Taiwan.

DOJ rolled out indictments on June 23 against four China-based chemical manufacturing companies and eight employees and executives at these companies for knowingly making, selling and distributing precursor chemicals for fentanyl proliferation in the U.S. Filing three cases at two New York district courts, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the suits stand as an effort to target "every step of the movement, manufacturing, and sale of fentanyl -- from start to finish." The cases mark the first time a Chinese company or individual has been charged for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a June 22 order denied a bid for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc in the suit on President Donald Trump's expansion of Section 232 steel and aluminum duties onto derivative products. Judges Kimberly Moore, Pauline Newman, Alan Lourie, Timothy Dyk, Sharon Prost, Jimmie Reyna, Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen, Todd Hughes, Kara Stoll and Leonard Stark made the decision denying the petitioners, ruling that the mandate will be issued June 29 (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2066).