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

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).

Mediation at the Court of International Trade resulted in a settlement of all issues in importer Valbruna Slater Stainless' suit on the Commerce Department's denials of its Section 232 steel tariff exclusion requests. Judge Leo Gordon served as mediator and told the court on Nov. 12 that the mediation settled the case (Valbruna Slater Stainless v. United States, CIT # 21-00027).

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York this month denied a request from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. to help the company obtain access to certain discovery documents that are restricted by the Bureau of Industry and Security. Judge Cheryl Pollak said that while DOJ marked hundreds of thousands of documents at a lower level of classification than BIS, which would give Huawei greater access to the records, the documents are "still subject to further review by BIS" (United States v. Huawei Technologies, E.D.N.Y. # 18-00457).

After the Commerce Department made no changes to the results of a 2019-20 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on Chinese solar cells (see 2408300020) after a remand order (see 2405090045), importers and exporters said that the department had failed to follow the trade court’s instructions -- continuing to justify use of a second surrogate to value an input with the argument that it needed that input reported in something other than kilograms even though it itself ordered respondents to report that way (Jinko Solar Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00219).

CBP and an importer reached a settlement in four customs cases on the classification of the company's photoresists. The goods were classified by CBP under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 3707.90.32, covering certain chemical preparations for photographic uses, dutiable at 6.5%. The agency agreed to liquidate the entries as sensitizing emulsions under subheading 3707.10.00, dutiable at 3%. The cases were brought by Tokyo Ohka Kogyo America, formerly known as Ohka America, and cover hundreds of the company's entries (Ohka America v. U.S., CIT #s 04-00583, 05-00292) (Tokyo Ohka Kogyo America v. U.S., CIT #s 10-00243, 17-00067).

Tomato exporters led by NS Brands failed to show good cause to untimely intervene in a case on the Commerce Department's 1996 antidumping duty investigation on Mexican tomatoes, petitioner The Florida Tomato Exchange argued on Nov. 8. The petitioner said NS Brands knew when the case started that the parties were challenging Commerce's failure to continue the proceeding and "has shown no reason it could not have timely intervened in this proceeding" (Bioparques de Occidente v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00204).

In response to U.S. opposition (see 2410090041) to its motion for judgment (see 2408010044), an aluminum importer again said Nov. 5 that its manufacturer’s production in South Korea was not minor or insignificant (Hanon Systems Alabama Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00013).

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

The Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department's finding that exporter Louis Dreyfus wasn't affiliated with its main fresh lemon supplier, leading to a de minimis rate for the company in the antidumping duty investigation on lemon juice from Brazil. Filing a confidential decision Nov. 7, Judge Claire Kelly gave the parties until Nov. 14 to review the confidential information in the opinion (Ventura Coastal v. U.S., CIT # 23-00009).