The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Exporters Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. and Carbon Activated Corp. will appeal a July Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's surrogate value picks for five inputs in an administrative review of the antidumping duty order on activated carbon from China (see 2307240049). The five inputs are carbonized material, coal tar, hydrochloric acid, steam and bituminous coal. Per the notice of appeal, the exporters will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the opinion, the trade court also sustained the valuation of ocean freight costs, calculation of surrogate financial ratios and acceptance of respondent Datong Juqiang Activated Carbon Co.'s reporting of its bituminous coal consumption (Carbon Activated Tianjin Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 22-00017).

The classification of gun sight inserts that use tritium for powerless illumination in low light conditions are properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9022 under the first General Rule of Interpretation (GRI), importer Trijicon argued in a Sept. 15 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade (Trijicon v. United States, CIT # 22-00040).

The Commerce Department made multiple errors, including miscalculating benchmark data and the use of adverse inferences, in a countervailing duty review on multilayered wood flooring from China, Baroque Timber Industries said in its Sept. 15 reply at the Court of International Trade. Those alleged errors resulted in inaccurate CVD rates for Fine Furniture and other Chinese wood flooring exporters, Baroque said in a motion for judgment in March (see 2303100041) (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00210).

No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.

The Commerce Department made several errors in its handling of the resumption of an antidumping duty investigation on tomatoes from Mexico after the termination of a suspension agreement, Mexican tomato exporter Bioparques de Occidente said in a Sept. 13 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (Bioparques de Occidente v. U.S., CIT # 19-00204).

Antidumping duty petitioner Association of American School Paper Supplies filed for and was granted dismissal of its lawsuit challenging a review of the AD order on lined paper products from India. The petitioner filed the suit to contest the Commerce Department's use of Afghanistan as a comparison market for India, arguing that the prices in Afghanistan were not representative and shouldn't have been the basis for normal value (see 2306060041). No reason was given for the case's dismissal, but all parties that had appeared in the action agreed to it (Association of American School Paper Suppliers v. United States, CIT # 23-00102).

The U.S. filed a motion to remand an Enforce and Protect Act case in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. United States, in which the appellate court said CBP violated an EAPA party's due process rights by not granting them access to business confidential information. Filing the Sept. 14 motion in a Court of International Trade case filed by importer Newtrend USA Co., the government claimed that a limited remand is needed because the opinion concerns "the treatment of confidential information" (Newtrend USA Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00347).

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Boutique law firm Fick & Marx filed suit against Joseph Baptiste, a defendant in a previous Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, for breach of contract since he has allegedly failed to pay the firm for services rendered on his behalf in the FCPA case. Taking to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the firm said that Baptiste has "repeatedly promised to pay" his tab, which now amounts to over $160,000, but has failed to do so even over a year later (Fick & Marx v. Joseph Baptiste, D. Mass. # 23-12097).