Importer Cambridge Isotope Laboratories told the Court of International Trade in an Aug. 30 letter as part of its customs suit that it filed a request for a changed circumstances review with the Commerce Department. In the customs case, Cambridge Isotopes said an enriched ammonium sulfate isotope was incorrectly placed within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on ammonium sulfate from China (see 2304280022). The changed circumstances review concerns the enriched 15N ammonium sulfate isotope (Cambridge Isotope Laboratories v. United States, CIT # 23-00080).

The Organization of Professional Aviculturists and the Lineolated Parakeet Society told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that the Fish and Wildlife Service illegally rejected their petitions to add two avian species to the list of birds that can be imported to the U.S. The avian advocacy groups argued that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida erroneously dismissed their case by ruling that the plain language of the Wild Exotic Bird Conservation Act does not require species to be listed by the specific countries of origin from which they can be imported (Organization of Professional Aviculturists v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 11th Cir. # 23-11984).

The U.S. backed the Commerce Department's valuation of exporter Jilin Bright Future Chemical's inputs of bituminous coal and coal tar as part of the 2020-21 review of the antidumping duty order on activated carbon from China. Filing its response to Jilin Bright's claims (see 2306080054) at the Court of International Trade, the government argued that the exporter failed to dispute Commerce's formula for converting useful heat value (UHV) to gross calorific value (GCV) as part of the BT coal valuation at the administrative level. As a result, Jilin Bright did not exhaust its administrative remedies, the brief said (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00336).

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an Aug. 28 order allowed the Canadian government and eight Canadian exporters to file an amicus brief in a case on the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its analysis to root out "masked" dumping. The Canadian government and companies asked for leave to file the brief earlier this month in the case in which the appellate court originally questioned the use of the test, arguing that Commerce is not using the statistical tool "in any coherent sense" (see 2308020027). The brief objected to the agency's defense of the test, which said that it can use the tool despite not satisfying base statistical assumptions since it is using the whole population of data instead of a sample (Stupp Corp. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1663).

Money laundering charges against a former oil and commodities trader for an alleged bribery scheme involving Mexican officials should not be dropped as duplicative of another ongoing lawsuit, DOJ in an Aug. 21 reply brief. The agency said the government is given “wide latitude” when charging conspiracies, adding that the indictment “plainly alleges” that only a single conspiracy existed (U.S. v. Javier Aguilar, E.D.N.Y. # 20-00390).

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida was wrong to deny refrigerant importer BMP International's motion to compel arbitration in a case brought by Chinese company T.T. International Co. (TTI) for unpaid invoices, BMP argued in its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The district court had said that the motion for arbitration was waived by BMP, along with joint venture iGas USA, after the companies failed to raise the issue in an earlier case involving TTI and BMP (T.T. International Co. v. BMP International, 11th Cir. # 23-11978).

The Commerce Department in an antidumping proceeding correctly used a bona fide sale analysis of a single sale of wooden cabinets by importer Dalian Hualing Wood (Hualing) from a linked investigation, DOJ argued in an Aug. 24 response at the Court of International Trade. The brief came in reply to a June motion for judgment, in which Hualing argued that Commerce illegally made separate determinations in linked antidumping and countervailing duty reviews (see 2306260033) (Dalian Hualing Wood Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00334).

CBP's Office of Regulations & Rulings correctly overturned the Trade Remedy & Law Enforcement Directorate's (TRLED) evasion finding against Dominican company Kingtom Aluminio in an Enforce and Protect Act administrative review, Kingtom said in an Aug. 23 brief at the Court of International Trade. Kingtom is intervening in a suit by the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee (AEFTC), which seeks to overturn CBP's final determination of no evasion (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. U.S., CIT # 22-00236).

Five U.S. steel companies -- ArcelorMittal Tubular Products, Michigan Semaless Tube, PTC Alliance Corp., Webco Industries and Zekelman Industries -- moved to dismiss their suit against the Commerce Department's 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on cold-drawn mechanical tubing of carbon and alloy steel from India. The complaint had yet to be filed in the case, originally brought on July 26 (ArcelorMittal Tubular Products v. United States, CIT # 23-00147).