The Court of International Trade sustained 162 requests for Section 232 steel tariff exclusions submitted by importer California Steel Industries in a confidential decision, though the court remanded 31 separate exclusion denials. Judge M. Miller Baker said that should the Commerce Department grant any of the 31 remanded exclusion requests, it shall tell CBP "to honor them" by extending the exclusions to "otherwise-eligible entries" that had not finally liquidated by the fifth business day after the original exclusion request denials (California Steel Industries v. United States, CIT # 21-00015).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 14 issued its mandate in a pair of antidumping and countervailing duty scope cases in which it sustained the Commerce Department's inclusion of door thresholds imported by Worldwide Door Components and Columbia Aluminum Products in the scope of the AD/CVD orders on aluminum extrusions from China (see 2410080046). The court said Commerce adequately explained that door thresholds are subassemblies and not qualified for the finished merchandise exception. The court affirmed that subassemblies and finished merchandise are "mutually exclusive categories" (Worldwide Door Components v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1532) (Columbia Aluminum Products v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1534).

The Court of International Trade dismissed Byungmin Chae's second lawsuit challenging his results of the April 2018 customs broker license exam, finding that the suit is precluded by the Nebraska resident's first case challenging the test.

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

The U.S. brief opposing exporter Koehler Oberkirch GmbH's petition for mandamus relief on the question of whether the government properly served the exporter relies on "case law of other circuits" and not the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Koehler argued. Filing a response brief on Nov. 12, the exporter said the "law of other jurisdictions does not determine legal error or a clear abuse of discretion in this Circuit" (In Re Koehler Oberkirch GmbH, Fed. Cir. # 25-106).

The U.S. and domestic producers of superabsorbent polymers Nov. 12 both supported the Commerce Department's redetermination on remand that switched back to its preliminary determination’s method of model matching in a highly technical case (see 2406170034) (The Ad Hoc Coalition of American SAP Producers v. United States, CIT # 23-00010).

A U.S. mattress importer on Nov. 12 opposed the government’s motion to dismiss its challenge to the International Trade Commission’s critical circumstances determination on mattresses from Burma, saying that its questionnaire response in the ITC’s investigation was enough to give it standing at the Court of International Trade (Pay Less Here v. U.S., CIT # 24-00152).

The Commerce Department wrongly determined in a scope ruling that an importer's pencils hadn’t been substantially transformed in the Philippines solely because a Chinese-origin input, wooden slats, were custom-manufactured for use in pencil production, that importer said in a motion for judgment Nov. 8 (School Specialty v. U.S., CIT # 24-00098).

Importers Wego International Floors, Galleher Corp. and Galleher LLC will appeal a Court of International Trade case on the 2016-17 review of the antidumping duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. The trade court sustained the Commerce Department's decision to weight average zero percent and adverse facts available antidumping rates to set the AD mark for the non-individually examined respondents (see 2409180044). CIT previously remanded Commerce's decision to use a simple average of the zero and AFA rates, instructing the agency to use a weighted average of the marks. The result was a 31.63% AD rate for the separate rate companies (Fusong Jinlong Wooden Group Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00144).

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