The Court of International Trade should not allow the Commerce Department to apply the highest dumping margin possible by picking only one mandatory respondent in a "weight-averaging situation," plaintiffs, led by Kisaan Die Tech Private, argued in a June 30 motion for judgment. The highest possible rate of the one respondent, determined using adverse facts available, is not reflective of the cooperating respondents' dumping margin, and thus not backed by evidence or law, the plaintiffs said (Kisaan Die Tech Private Ltd. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #21-00512).

Exporter SeAH Steel Corp. should not be allowed to intervene in an antidumping duty case at the Court of International Trade since the court's ruling in the matter "would have no effect on its entries," the U.S. argued in a June 30 reply brief. SeAH only seeks to join the case, initially brought by Hyundai Steel Co., to potentially use the opinion as precedent in a later proceeding from a subsequent administrative review, DOJ said. This rationale does not clear the court's bar for establishing standing as an intervening party, the U.S. argued (Hyundai Steel Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #22-00138).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit shouldn't merely affirm an antidumping duty case concerning whether the Commerce Department can make a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test, AD petitioners, led by the American Cast Iron Pipe, said in a June 28 submission to the appellate court. Though the Federal Circuit said that Commerce can't make such an adjustment in the Hyundai Steel v. U.S. case, the present action has a "much different factual posture that merits consideration," so litigation should continue, the petitioners said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1502).

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

The Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts dismissed charges of wire fraud against Yanzhi Chen, one of the defendants in a case involving semiconductor propriety information stolen from Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). Chen and her husband, Haoyang Yu, along with their company Tricon MMIC, were charged with stealing hundreds of files belonging to ADI (U.S. v. Haoyang Yu, D. Mass. #19-10195).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate June 28 in a case on the tariff classification of tobacco wraps. In its May decision, the appellate court affirmed the Court of International Trade's ruling, which allowed into evidence the results of a particular customs test used to weigh the tobacco wraps. Importer New Image Global filed the case to fight for a lower excise tax on its tobacco wraps, which were classified as roll-your-own tobacco, subjecting them to the excise tax (New Image Global v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #19-2444).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on June 28 in a countervailing duty case over Indian exporter Uttam Galva's failure to report an affiliated cross-owned company. In a May opinion, the Federal Circuit said that the Commerce Department properly used adverse facts available, resulting in a 588.43% CVD rate, over the failure to report the affiliate in the CVD review on corrosion-resistant steel products from India. The court said the exporter didn't show that the affiliated company's financial statement could rebut the inclusion of 20 subsidy programs supposedly given to it, permitting the subsidies' inclusion in Uttam Galva's rate (Uttam Galva Steels Limited v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2119).

The Court of International Trade in a June 28 order consolidated four antidumping duty cases concerning whether the Commerce Department can use one antidumping mandatory respondent's third-country sales to calculate another mandatory respondent's constructed value profit, selling expenses and constructed export price profit. The cases, brought by lead plaintiffs Hyundai Steel Co., AJU Besteel Co., Nexteel Co. and Husteel Co., all challenge the same final results in the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on oil country tubular goods from South Korea.

The Court of International Trade should rule that all 14 frozen fruit mixtures imported into the U.S. from Canada by Nature's Touch are properly classified under duty-free subheading 2106.90.98 as “Food preparations not elsewhere specified or included,” Nature's Touch said in a June 27 brief in support of its April 18 motion for summary judgment (see 2204190052) (Nature's Touch Frozen Foods (West). v. U.S., CIT #20-00131).

The Office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts dropped its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case against Richard Boncy, a businessman and former Haitian ambassador-at-large, and Joseph Baptiste, a Haitian-American businessman. Filing a motion to dismiss a few days before the case's second trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the U.S. said that given the court's earlier decision vacating past convictions and the loss of recordings potentially containing exculpatory information, the case should be tossed. Judge Allison Burroughs dismissed the case in a text-only order June 28 (U.S. v. Roger Richard Boncy, D. Mass. #17-10305).