The Court of International Trade on March 26 sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in the 2020-21 antidumping duty review on hot-rolled steel flat products from Japan. Judge Stephen Vaden said that since no party contests the remand results, which were voluntarily requested by Commerce so the agency could treat exporter Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co. as a mandatory respondent, the case is upheld (Optima Steel International v. U.S., CIT # 23-00108).

The Court of International Trade reassigned 27 cases from various judges to new Judges Joseph Laroski and Lisa Wang. Chief Judge Mark Barnett reassigned 17 cases from Judges Claire Kelly, Timothy Reif, Jennifer Choe-Groves, Timothy Stanceu, Gary Katzmann, Leo Gordon, M. Miller Baker and Richard Eaton to Laroski, and 10 cases from Kelly, Reif, Katzmann, Gordon, Eaton and Thomas Aquilino to Wang.

The Commerce Department doesn't consider a product's end-use while making scope rulings unless required to by the relevant antidumping or countervailing duty order, the government said March 26 as it opposed summary judgment in a scope ruling case regarding edge-glued boards from China (Hardware Resources v. U.S., CIT # 23-00150).

The U.S. filed a cross-motion for summary judgment March 25 in a case contesting CBP’s assessment of antidumping duties on an importer’s entries of a product that had been exempted from an AD order (see 2401080040). In the cross-motion, the government said that the liquidation had gone ahead because the importer hadn't filed the proper entry documentation (Kiswire Inc. v. U.S., CIT Consol. #22-00181).

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

A petitioner submitted its final brief March 25 opposing the Commerce Department’s continued use of India as a surrogate for Vietnam in its review of an antidumping duty order on frozen fish fillets. It argued that Commerce was mixing up the definitions of “same” and “comparable” in its surrogate selection process (Catfish Farmers of America v. U.S., CIT # 21-00380).

Responding to opposition to class certification by the chocolate company Nestle USA, a plaintiff said March 22 she never would have purchased Nestle’s products if the company’s packaging hadn’t misrepresented them as sustainably and ethically sourced (Falcone v. Nestle USA, S.D. Cal. # 19-00723).

An importer said in a March 27 complaint that the Commerce Department shouldn't have found that its garlic cloves from China that are boiled, then frozen were subject to an antidumping duty order on fresh garlic (Export Packers Company Limited v. U.S., CIT # 24-00061).

The Court of International Trade on March 26 ordered importer Lutron Electronics Co. to submit a supplemental brief further explaining its demand for redacted information in CBP's internal documents as part of a customs suit on the company's window shade machines. Judge Richard Eaton said Lutron must reconcile its motion to compel the documents with the holdings from Ford Motor Co. v. U.S., a 2010 U.S. Court of Federal Claims decision (Lutron Electronics Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00264).

A petitioner replied March 18 to opposition to its appeal of a Court of International Trade decision that an importer’s plastic shelf dividers weren't covered by antidumping and countervailing duty orders on raw flexible magnets from China (see 2309260049). It said that the plain text of the orders didn't exclude “functionally inflexible” magnets and that the dividers couldn't be “rigid” because they were “capable of being bent” (Magnum Magnetics Corp. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1164).