The Commerce Department should have picked Indonesia over India when selecting a surrogate country in an antidumping duty administrative review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, Catfish Farmers of America said in an Aug. 30 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade. Commerce picked India in spite of the fact that Indonesia "produces identical and comparable merchandise that more closely represents the subject merchandise than does India, Indonesia produces and exports far greater quantities than India, and the Indonesian data on the record are superior to the Indian data," the complaint said (Catfish Farmers of Ameirca, et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00380).
Jacob Kopnick
Jacob Kopnick, Associate Editor, is a reporter for Trade Law Daily and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and International Trade Today. He joined the Warren Communications News team in early 2021 covering a wide range of topics including trade-related court cases and export issues in Europe and Asia. Jacob's background is in trade policy, having spent time with both CSIS and USTR researching international trade and its complexities. Jacob is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Public Policy.
An extension of the time of service in a penalty action against the owner and director of importer Atria, Kevin Ho, should not be granted, counsel for Ho argued in an Aug. 25 reply brief at the Court of International Trade, also pushing for the case to be dismissed. The U.S. served Ho's counsel with the wrong summons and complaint and cannot prove excusable neglect in its service, Ho argued (United States v. Chu-Chiang "Kevin" Ho, et al., CIT #19-00038).
After talks with the Commerce Department broke down over when Hong Kong-based apparel company Changji Esquel Textile (CJE) could be dropped from the agency's entity list, CJE resumed its litigation against the designation in federal court. The company, part of the Esquel group, on Aug. 27 filed a motion to re-set a hearing on a preliminary injunction against its placement on the list.
The Court of International Trade granted partial judgment in an antidumping case on Aug. 26, holding that the Commerce Department legally included sample sales of quartz surface products from Pokarna Engineered Stone Limited in the dumping calculation. Judge Leo Gordon originally made the call on Aug. 25, but issued Friday's decision of partial judgment to finalize the decision, seeing as there are other lingering issues still being litigated in the case.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department stuck with its application of facts available in remand results filed at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 25 despite a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision finding that such reliance on the current data was inappropriate. Seeing as no other data was available than respondent Dillinger France's books and records, Commerce said it had to rely on them despite their deficiencies (Dillinger France S.A. v. United States, CIT #17-00159).
The Commerce Department has to reconsider two scope rulings that found that certain flanges are subject to the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China. In two decisions, the Court of International Trade said that Commerce either misinterpreted evidence or failed to consider all the relevant evidence when deciding that flanges from MCC Holdings, doing business as Crane Resistoflex, and Star Pipe Products are subject to the antidumping duty order.
A lawsuit seeking Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions should be dismissed because the subject entries are not liquidated, the Department of Justice said in an Aug. 26 motion to dismiss at the Court of International Trade. The suit, brought by Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, is seeking the exclusions on 19 entries of steel pipe from Turkey and claims jurisdiction under Section 1581(a). However, a protestable decision needs to occur to claim this jurisdiction -- something the plaintiffs do not have, DOJ said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00186).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 26 dismissed a steel importer's and purchaser's bid to reliquidate two entries subject to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, saying the plaintiffs had already received the relief available to them from the Commerce Department in the form of a product exclusion but failed to preserve their ability to receive a refund by way of an extension of liquidation or a protest.