Jacob Kopnick

Chinese lidar company Hesai Technology and the U.S. agreed to file new motions for summary judgment in the company's lawsuit against its designation as a Chinese military company after the Pentagon relisted the firm (see 2410230018). Filing a joint status report on Nov. 5 at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the parties agreed that their pending cross-motions for judgment are moot and that renewed cross-motions for summary judgment are needed. The parties submitted a proposed schedule that would run from Nov. 8 to mid-February 2025 (Hesai Technology Co. v. Department of Defense, D.D.C. # 24-01381).

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

Turkish national Taskin Torlak was arrested Nov. 2 for allegedly conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions by scheming to ship oil from Venezuela to benefit the country's state-owned oil and natural gas company Petroleos de Venezuela, DOJ announced.

The Court of International Trade rejected importer Retractable Technologies' bids for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction stopping the collection of Section 301 duties on its needles and syringes. However, in a decision made public Nov. 4, Judge Claire Kelly did stop liquidation of Retractable's entries during the course of the company's suit, which challenges the legality of a Section 301 rate hike on needles and syringes.

A Virginia-based freight consolidation and forwarding business and two of its executives were charged with conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act after they allegedly exported goods and technology to Russia by transshipping them through Turkey, Finland and Kazakhstan, DOJ announced Nov. 4.

Exporter POSCO argued on Nov. 5 that the Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government's provision of electricity below costs is de facto specific is unsupported by substantial evidence. Filing a reply brief at the Court of International Trade, POSCO said Commerce's specificity finding "relies on a random grouping of the steel industry with two other unrelated industries" to find that the steel industry gets a disproportionate amount of the subsidy (POSCO v. United States, CIT # 24-00006).

China said it will continue its challenge at the World Trade Organization against the EU's countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles. The nation's Ministry of Commerce said on Nov. 4 it believes the EU's duties "lack both factual and legal grounds," violate WTO rules and stand as a "pretext for trade protectionism," according to an unofficial translation.

The U.S. on Nov. 1 defended the Commerce Department's decision on remand to not grant exporter Gujarat Fluorochemicals a constructed export price offset in the antidumping duty investigation on granular polytetrafluorethylene resin from India. The government said Gujarat failed to provide a quantitative analysis that would justify the offset (Daikin America v. United States, CIT # 22-00122).

Oil trader Gary Oztemel will pay $301,575 to settle charges that he violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for paying over $1 million in bribes to Brazilian officials to secure contracts for two U.S. energy corporations. Oztemel pleaded guilty in June to money laundering, leading to the final plea settlement.

The Commerce Department reasonably used exporter San Shing Fastech Corp.'s financial statements to calculate constructed value profit and selling expenses for respondent Your Standing International in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from Taiwan, the U.S. argued in a response to Your Standing's motion for judgment (Your Standing International v. United States, CIT # 24-00055).