The case against United States Steel Corporation alleging that the Pittsburgh-based company misled the Commerce Department when it objected to Russian importer NLMK's Section 232 exclusion argues an unrecognized category of "unfair competition," U.S. Steel said in an Aug. 30 motion to toss the case. In a brief filed in the lawsuit at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, U.S. Steel said that it is immune to any liability stemming from its petitioning of the government and that NLMK's suit is barred by federal law (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC, et al. v. United States Steel Corporation, W.D. Pa. #21-00273).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A lawsuit seeking Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions should be dismissed because the subject entries are not liquidated, the Department of Justice said in an Aug. 26 motion to dismiss at the Court of International Trade. The suit, brought by Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, is seeking the exclusions on 19 entries of steel pipe from Turkey and claims jurisdiction under Section 1581(a). However, a protestable decision needs to occur to claim this jurisdiction -- something the plaintiffs do not have, DOJ said (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., et al. v. U.S., CIT #21-00186).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 26 dismissed a steel importer's and purchaser's bid to reliquidate two entries subject to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, saying the plaintiffs had already received the relief available to them from the Commerce Department in the form of a product exclusion but failed to preserve their ability to receive a refund by way of an extension of liquidation or a protest.
The Court of International Trade dismissed a case from steel importers Voestalpine USA Corp. and Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel requesting reliquidation of two steel entries exclusive of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, in an Aug. 26 order. Chief Judge Mark Barnett said that while the case appropriately sought jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) since it challenged a denied exclusion request from the Commerce Department, the plaintiffs received all the relief available to them from Commerce -- their exclusion request was eventually granted, so that aspect of the case was moot. But to secure a refund, they should have filed a protest to seek CBP reliquidation of the relevant entries, and they did not, Barnett said.
Russian steel importer NLMK's lawsuit against U.S. Steel alleging the Pittsburgh-based company misled the Commerce Department when it objected to NLMK's Section 232 exclusion requests will stay in Pennsylvania federal court, per an Aug. 19 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Judge William Stickman IV denied NLMK's motion to keep the case in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, where it was originally filed, finding that the case raises federal issues including recreating Commerce's thought process in examining the exclusion requests (NLMK Pennsylvania, LLC, et al. v. United States Steel Corporation, W.D. Pa. #21-00273).
The Court of International Trade stayed proceedings in Stanley Black & Decker's case challenging the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff expansion to include steel "derivative" products pending the PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S. case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In back-to-back orders on Aug. 18, the court also issued a preliminary injunction against Stanley's entries subject to the steel derivatives tariffs (Stanley Black & Decker v. U.S., CIT #21-00262). Seeing as the PrimeSource case is the case on the forefront of the Section 232 steel derivatives tariff question, resolution of Stanley's case will wait until its appeal is settled. "The ultimate resolution of the PrimeSource case will likely resolve this matter without the necessity of going to trial, or, alternatively, it may narrow the issues in dispute," Stanley's motion for the stay said (see 2108030067).
The U.S.' voluntary remand request in two Section 232 exclusion cases should be denied in its current form since the government's delayed, tranched solution is "unconscionable," steel importers Allegheny Technologies Inc. and California Steel Industries argued in an Aug. 16 reply brief. Given that Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests are supposed to be decided within 106 days, the Commerce Department's proposed nine to 12 month schedule to reconsider CSI's exclusion requests is "unreasonable" with a "nonsensical" rationale, CSI argued (Allegheny Technologies Incorporated et al. v. U.S., CIT #20-03923)(California Steel Industries, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00015).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Aluminum extrusion producer Kingtom Aluminio requested to intervene in a Court of International Trade case over an antidumping duty evasion investigation that found it transshipped aluminum extrusions from China through the Dominican Republic to skirt the duties. A previous request was denied by Judge Richard Eaton (see 2106210059). Undeterred, Kingtom filed a motion for reconsideration in the court. Eaton permitted the producer on Aug. 5 to support its motion with an affidavit by individuals who can speak to Kingtom's interests in the case along with a brief, with a maximum of 10 pages, to explain how this affidavit satisfies the requirement for intervention (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00198).