The U.S. Court of International Trade extended by a week to Sept. 10 the deadline for CBP to activate the repository imposed in the July 6 preliminary injunction order for importers to suspend the liquidation of customs entries from China with Section 301 lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure. Chief Judge Mark Barnett proposed the delay at a status conference held Sept. 1 after plaintiffs and the government appeared close to an agreement on a refund stipulation plan that would make the repository unnecessary (see 2109010055). Activating the repository anyway on its original Sept. 3 deadline in light of the pending agreement would be “an exercise in futility,” Barnett told the court prior to issuing the text order.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Plaintiff and defendant-intervenor OCP S.A. wants a statutory injunction on the liquidation of all of its entries, even those beyond the period of review for the contested countervailing duty investigation, pushing back against the government's arguments in a Sept. 1 brief. The U.S. contested that OCP satisfied the "irreparable harm" standard required of injunction motions since the "threat of liquidation" from entries beyond the first period of review "is too far in the future" (The Mosaic Company, et al. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #21-00116).
Chinese wood cabinet and vanities exporter Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co. moved, unopposed, for a preliminary injunction against liquidation of its entries in a countervailing duty challenge at the Court of International Trade, in a Sept. 1 filing. That's despite the fact that the challenge is of the underlying countervailing duty investigation on the wood cabinet and vanities from China, and liquidation of the entries is suspended until the conclusion of the first administrative review (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #20-00110).
The Commerce Department must reconsider its decision to collapse two mandatory respondents and one of their affiliates in an antidumping duty investigation on corrosion-resistant steel (CORE) products from Taiwan, the Court of International Trade ruled on Sept. 1, seeking to bring Commerce's results in line with a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit mandate. Judge Timothy Stanceu also ordered Commerce to use facts otherwise available with an adverse inference on one of the respondent's reporting of yield strength in the investigation.
2nd Circuit Finds Chinese Banks Not in Contempt for Failing to Enforce Counterfeit-Related Sanctions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld a district court decision finding that a group of Chinese banks are not in contempt for failing to enforce a series of orders barring transferring, withdrawing or disposing of funds into the accounts of entities guilty of trademark infringement in an Aug. 30 order. Until the contempt motion, the plaintiff, investment firm Next Investments, never sought to enforce the orders against the banks in question, precluding them from now succeeding, in part, on a contempt motion, the appellate court held.
The level of trade in the U.S. is irrelevant to the Universal Tube and Plastic Industries' argument that the Commerce Department incorrectly found there to be only a single level of trade in the home market in an antidumping duty case, plaintiffs led by Universal Tube argued in an Aug. 27 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Seeing as the Department of Justice and the antidumping petitioner repeatedly raised this point to argue against Universal's position, it is unclear whether they did so to confuse the court with "irrelevant" details or just don't "understand the distinctions," the brief said (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 20-03944).
The Commerce Department properly rejected data corrections submitted by exporter Goodluck India in an antidumping duty investigation on cold-drawn mechanical tubing from India, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in an Aug. 31 opinion, reversing the Court of International Trade's decision. The corrections were not “minor,” meaning that Commerce was justified when it originally rejected the revisions and hit Goodluck with an adverse facts available AD duty rate, a three-judge panel at the appellate court said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The case against United States Steel Corporation alleging that the Pittsburgh-based company misled the Commerce Department when it objected to Russian importer NLMK's Section 232 exclusion argues an unrecognized category of "unfair competition," U.S. Steel said in an Aug. 30 motion to toss the case. In a brief filed in the lawsuit at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, U.S. Steel said that it is immune to any liability stemming from its petitioning of the government and that NLMK's suit is barred by federal law (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC, et al. v. United States Steel Corporation, W.D. Pa. #21-00273).