A customs broker license test taker filed suit at the Court of International Trade after two appeals of her final score on the Customs Broker License Examination failed to result in a passing grade. Filing the case without an attorney, Shuzhen Zhong wants the court to review the six questions she appealed to CBP, of which she only received credit for one upon reconsideration. Zhong took particular issue with CBP's getting both her address and gender wrong when returning the results of her appeal (Zhong v. United States, CIT #22-00041).

The Commerce Department reasonably derived the separate rate respondents' dumping margin in an antidumping duty investigation by averaging the mandatory respondents' zero percent and adverse facts available rates, petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a Feb. 3 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to arguments made by the plaintiffs, led by Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., Celtic Co. and Taraca Pacific, the coalition said that Commerce properly relied on the information laid out in the petition to derive the rates since it was already vetted by Commerce as part of the pre-initiation phase of the investigation (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #18-00002).

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that the entry of appearance for plaintiff-appellee PT. Kenertec Power System's counsel was not in compliance with the court's rules. In particular, the court said that the contact information for Daniel Robert Wilson and Kang Woo Lee of Arnold & Porter "does not match the information associated with the user's account." Up-to-date contact information is needed for the two attorneys, the court said. The case is an appeal by the Wind Tower Trade Coalition over a Court of International Trade decision that sustained the Commerce Department's decision to ultimately find no countervailable subsidization in a countervailing duty investigation of utility scale wind towers from Indonesia (PT. Kenertec Power System v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1408).

The Commerce Department stuck with its application of adverse facts available over certain countervailing duty respondents' alleged use of China's Exporter Buyer's Credit Program in its Feb. 9 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade, responding to a series of questions the court wanted answered on why the agency's lack of certain information from the Chinese government precluded its ability to verify that the respondents didn't use the program (Cooper (Kunshan) Tire Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00113).

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued its final judgment in a case which found Japanese manufacturer Sigma Corporation, along with other companies, guilty of False Claims Act violations related to not paying antidumping duties. The final judgment comes after the final jury verdict in the case. Sigma was found liable for over $24.2 million in damages and civil monetary penalties exceeding $1.8 million.

The Commerce Department excluded importer Star Pipe Products' 11 ductile iron flanges from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings because the Court of International Trade left no alternative, Commerce said in a Feb. 7 brief. Responding to U.S. producer ASC Engineered Solutions arguments in a reply brief at CIT, Commerce said that even though the court initially agreed that the plain scope language included Star Pipe's flanges in the AD order, it said this was insufficient to include the flanges (Star Pipe Products v. United States, CIT #17-00236).

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued two mandates dismissing challenges brought by Trans Texas Tire and Zhejiang Jingu Company over a scope ruling in the antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigation into steel trailer wheels from China. In November 2021, the Court of International Trade upheld Commerce's inclusion of steel trailer wheels coated in chrome through a physical vapor deposition process under the ADD/CVD orders on steel trailer wheels while also dropping the retroactive imposition of the duties on subject merchandise (see 2111180043). One case concerns the antidumping duty order and the other is on the countervailing duty order. Jingu moved to dismiss the the appeals on Feb. 7 (Trans Texas Tire LLC v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1395, -1396).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed a challenge to the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review of frozen fish fillets from Vietnam after the plaintiffs, led by the Hung Vuong Corporation, moved to voluntarily toss the appeal. The Court of International Trade had upheld Commerce's use of AFA based on Hung Vuong's failure to retain source documents on feed consumption, production records and sales correspondence, and the respondent's failure to report factors of production data on a control number-specific basis (see 2110130031) (Hung Vuong Corporation, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1261).