The Court of International Trade on July 20 granted a request for voluntary remand from the Commerce Department to reconsider two denied requests from Maple Leaf Marketing for exclusions from Section 232 tariffs. In its motion requesting the remand, Commerce said that the redo was appropriate given the similarities between Maple Leaf's situation and a 2020 case in front of CIT, JSW Steel Inc. v. U.S. In that case, the court found that Commerce's exclusion denials were "devoid of explanation and frustrate judicial review." In its request in the Maple Leaf case, Commerce said that it "could grant one or both of the exclusion requests that Maple Leaf challenges in this case." Commerce originally rejected the exclusions since it found that the "domestic industry was capable of manufacturing sufficient quantities of merchandise of sufficient quality" (Maple Leaf Marketing, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #20-00125).

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

The Commerce Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act by using the same "boilerplate language" used in every Section 232 exclusion request denial when axing CPW America Co.'s bid for relief from the national security tariffs, the company said in a July 19 complaint. By filing suit in the Court of International Trade, CPWA becomes yet another steel importer to challenge what it deems the unlawful denial of a request for exclusion from the Section 232 tariffs. The importer says that Commerce erred in issuing the denial by failing to "meaningfully consider" the evidence submitted by CPWA and find that there were no overriding national security considerations in granting the exclusion request (CPW America Co. v. United States, CIT #21-00335).

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

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in a July 19 ruling the Court of International Trade's denial of a challenge to a 2020 amendment to an antidumping duty suspension agreement on sugar from Mexico. The trade court had in June 2020 denied CSC Sugar's bid to vacate the suspension agreement amendment. The Federal Circuit upheld the decision without opinion.

Hialeah Aluminum Supply supports a Dominican aluminum extrusion producer's bid to join its lawsuit challenging an Enforce and Protect Act investigation into antidumping duty evasion. In a brief filed July 16, the importer said it supports a request from Kingtom Alumino, at the center of the challenged EAPA investigation (see 2106280026), for reconsideration of Kingtom's motion to intervene in the case.

A spice company's challenge to a $50,000 penalty for failing to export a shipment of tamarind from Mexico was dismissed from the Court of International Trade for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Judge Timothy Stanceu said in a July 19 opinion. CIT found that the case was untimely filed in the court and that the complaint is over a Food and Drug Administration decision merely carried out by CBP.

An amicus brief from a group of domestic agricultural goods producers reared its head in a second case over when the six-year limitations period begins for a customs bond. A group of surety associations should not be able to argue in the case due to their role in "abetting the new shipper bond disaster," the producers argued in their July 16 amicus brief that was granted permission to be filed in the case (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT #20-03628).

The Commerce Department was justified in continuing to apply total adverse facts available in an antidumping case after a Court of International Trade remand since the respondent failed to accurately report control number-specific U.S. sales and factors of production data when it could have "easily" done so, case petitioner Catfish Farmers of America said in a July 9 reply brief. Doubling down on Commerce's arguments, the catfish farmers said the court should sustain the remand results in the case over the final results of the 14th administrative review of the antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam (Hung Vuong Corporation, et al. v. United States, CIT #19-00055).

The Commerce Department must further explain its use of a statistical test when using its differential pricing analysis in an antidumping duty investigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a July 15 opinion. Partially remanding an antidumping investigation into welded line pipe from South Korea, the Federal Circuit questioned Commerce's use of the "Cohen's d test" to discover targeted or masked dumping.