The Court of International Trade on April 21 remanded a Commerce Department scope ruling that found a paint sprayer nozzle importer’s products weren’t heat sinks and thus weren't exempt from antidumping duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. The department “added a new requirement” to the five-factor test identifying heat sinks, saying that an import can't be dual-purpose, CIT Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said (Wagner Spray Tech Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00241).

The Court of International Trade denied a motion from five importers to put an emergency block on President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, in an order issued late on April 22. CIT Judges Jane Restani, Gary Katzmann and Timothy Reif ruled the five importers haven’t shown that “immediate and irreparable harm” would result from not issuing a temporary restraining order while the court considers the importers’ request for a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 22 held that the Commerce Department may not use the Cohen's d test to detect targeted dumping where the "underlying data is not normally distributed, equally variable, and equally and sufficiently numerous." Judges Sharon Prost, Richard Taranto and Raymond Chen said it's "unreasonable" for Commerce to use the d test on data sets that don't satisfy the statistical assumptions, adding that the agency's argument that the assumptions need not apply when using the test on the entire population of data as opposed to just samples "strains credulity." Remanding the antidumping duty investigation of utility-scale wind towers from Canada, the Federal Circuit also sent back Commerce's rejection of respondent Marmen's supplemental cost-reconciliation item meant to correct certain purchase information that hadn't been properly converted from U.S. dollars to Canadian dollars. However, the court sustained Commerce's decision to weight-average Marmen's reported steel plate costs.

The Court of International Trade in a decision made public April 22 said Hoshine Silicon (Jia Xing) Industry Co. has constitutional and statutory standing to challenge CBP's issuance of and refusal to modify a withhold release order on its parent company, Hoshine Silicon, and its subsidiaries. However, Judge Claire Kelly dismissed Jiaxing Hoshine's challenge to the issuance of the WRO for untimeliness, since it was brought after the statute of limitations had run.

The Court of International Trade ruled April 21 almost completely in favor of sink importer R.H. Peterson, finding that most of the disputed components for, and all of the value added to, the importer’s sinks shouldn’t have been included in the sinks’ dutiable value. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves held that the U.S. was allowed in this instance to adopt a position contrary to CBP’s during the administrative proceeding. She also refused to award attorneys fees, saying the importer hadn’t provided an adequate explanation as to why the government’s litigation position had been unjustified (R.H. Peterson v. U.S., CIT # 20-00099).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 21 held to a strict interpretation of the principle of finality of liquidation, ruling that the Court of International Trade can't consider equitable reasons for ordering reliquidation of finally liquidated entries. Judges Richard Taranto and Raymond Chen said the trade court can't order reliquidation beyond the statutory exceptions, which specifically refer to filing a protest with CBP or a civil action at the trade court. Judge Jimmie Reyna dissented from the ruling, arguing that the majority misapprehends CBP's protest procedures and improperly limits "CIT’s authority to enforce its judgments to a level that is inferior" to the full authority of an Article III court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled April 21 that the Commerce Department had been allowed to adjust wind tower exporter Dongkuk S&C Co.’s steel plate input costs, saying the department reasonably found price fluctuations unrelated to an input's physical characteristics. The court also upheld Commerce’s surrogate selection of SeAH Steel Holdings Corporation over SeAH Steel as reasonable because the former could offer data covering the entire period of investigation (Dongkuk S&C Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1419).

The Court of International Trade on April 18 sustained the International Trade Commission's preliminary negative injury determination on aluminum extrusions from the Dominican Republic. Judge Lisa Wang rejected all three of the petitioners' claims, which challenged the ITC's findings that subject imports were negligible, there was "no likelihood of contrary evidence to arise in the final phase which would warrant a non-negligibility determination," and imports from the Dominican Republic don't have the potential to exceed the negligibility threshold in the "imminent future."

The Court of International Trade partly granted vehicle accessories importer Keystone Automotive Operations’ request for reconsideration of an Oct. 7 decision. CIT Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said she had conducted a “traditional eo nomine versus principal use analysis” in her decision, but that Keystone had actually argued that the United States Trade Representative had outlined a “new legal standard” for applying the relevant Section 301 tariff exclusion (Keystone Automotive Operations v. United States, CIT # 21-00215).

The Court of International Trade on April 17 sustained the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on fresh tomatoes from Mexico, which was initially opened in 1996. After the agency calculated AD margins for the seven respondents from the original 1995-96 investigation period on remand, a group of intervenors, led by NS Brands, challenged Commerce's decision not to find a changed circumstance or initiate new shipper reviews for the intervenors. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves dismissed the claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, noting that they could have been brought under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, instead of under the plaintiffs' jurisdictional claim under Section 1581(c). The judge also found that the intervenors lacked standing to sue.