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

CBP's failure to alert Fedmet Resources of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation or to publish public summaries in the proceeding violated the company's constitutional due process rights, Fedmet said in a May 21 complaint in the Court of International Trade.

Building materials company Bruskin International made its first arguments to the Federal Circuit in a challenge to a change to the scope during an antidumping duty investigation, claiming that the Commerce Department made numerous and significant procedural errors in the scope modification in question, in an opening brief filed May 14.

The 22 states, along with Washington, D.C., that challenged the Trump administration's decision to transfer "ghost gun" blueprints from the U.S. Munitions List to the less-restrictive Commerce Control List will not seek a review of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's decision to greenlight the move. According to a May 18 consent motion, lawyers for the State Department and the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls requested that the court immediately issue the mandate in the case, claiming that they received the go-ahead from the plaintiffs. Brendan Selby, counsel for the plaintiff State of Washington, told the defense that the states consent to the "immediate issuance of the mandate."

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

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

Turkish steel exporter Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi A.S. was denied a petition for a panel rehearing by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a May 20 order said. Habas had been seeking to overturn a March 30 Federal Circuit decision that affirmed the Commerce Department's imposition of a 14.01% countervailing duty on its exports of steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey. In its investigation, Commerce imposed its facts otherwise available principle since the exporter was not forthcoming about benefits received under a Turkish duty drawback program. Commerce derived the 14.01% rate from a prior rate the agency assessed on an export tax rebate program in a 1986 CVD investigation on welded pipe and tube from Turkey. Habas requested a rehearing of the decision on the grounds that it is unlawful to use an adverse facts available (AFA) rate from a program that Commerce has verified to have been terminated and that it is unlawful for the agency to fail to apply its own practice in selecting a rate for application of AFA.

U.S. Steel Corp. told the Court of International Trade May 19 that the public release of the administrative record in a case involving Section 232 exclusions should entitle the company to the right to intervene in the case. “Among the reasons U. S. Steel cited in support of its right to intervene was the use and contextualization of factual information supplied by U. S. Steel to Commerce,” the company told the court. The Commerce Department's inadvertent released of this information means U.S. Steel's “fear has been realized,” the company said.

The Court of International Trade erred in finding that the Commerce Department improperly applied a particular market situation when addressing purported distortions to costs of production in the 2015-16 antidumping administrative review on welded line pipe from South Korea, U.S. domestic pipe manufacturer Welspun Tubular LLC argued in its May 17 opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Arguing that Commerce's interpretation of the PMS statute is entitled to deference and that the agency's finding of a PMS in South Korea is supported by substantial evidence, Welspun argued that CIT's reading of 2015's Trade Preferences Extension Act in a decision issued by the lower court on Jan. 4 would lead to "absurd results."

The Customs Surety Coalition called foul on a CBP attempt to collect unpaid antidumping duties eight years after the relevant entries liquidated, saying the “devastating impact on the surety program is obvious,” in a May 20 amicus brief filed in the Court of International Trade. Stepping in to help defend Aegis Security Insurance Co., the coalition argued that if the court were to accept CBP's position, the statute of limitations on duty payments would be eliminated, allowing the agency to use the law to "absurd ends." CSC was joined by its four coalition members -- the International Trade Surety Association, the National Association of Surety Bond Producers, Inc., the Surety & Fidelity Association of American and the Customs Surety Association -- in its brief (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT #20-03628).