The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Two steel importers, voestalpine USA and Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel, want refunds for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid on imports of alloy steel since the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security published a Section 232 exclusion with the wrong Harmonized Tariff Schedule code, they said in a June 18 complaint filed at the Court of International Trade. Voestalpine and Bilstein say the HTS error was only remedied after the imports had been liquidated and that no protest option was available to apply the exclusions after liquidation (voestalpine USA LLC et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00290).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping administrative review of an antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel standard pipe and tube products from Turkey, dropping any adjustments to the sales-below-cost test it made after finding a particular market situation, in a one-page June 16 decision.
A far-reaching legal challenge to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs brought by ME Global was stayed by the Court of International Trade pending an appeal of a related case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a June 14 stay order (ME Global, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00130) The Federal Circuit case, Universal Steel Products, Inc. v. United States, carries arguments similar to those in ME Global's case in that both claim that procedural requirements were ignored in President Donald Trump's expansion of the tariffs (see 2105250077).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A group of steel importers, after suffering a defeat in the Court of International Trade, brought their broad challenge to the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, arguing that the statute includes procedural requirements that were ignored in President Donald Trump's expansion of the tariffs. Filing its opening brief on May 24, the importers say that plain use of the mandatory word "shall" throughout Section 232 means the procedural requirements, such as an underlying report from the Commerce Department precipitating tariff action, are required. The steel importers also again argued that the commerce secretary's report is considered final agency action, ready for judicial review (Universal Steel Products, Inc. et al., v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1726).
U.S. Steel Corp. told the Court of International Trade May 19 that the public release of the administrative record in a case involving Section 232 exclusions should entitle the company to the right to intervene in the case. “Among the reasons U. S. Steel cited in support of its right to intervene was the use and contextualization of factual information supplied by U. S. Steel to Commerce,” the company told the court. The Commerce Department's inadvertent released of this information means U.S. Steel's “fear has been realized,” the company said.
The Department of Justice's argument claiming that the Voestalpine USA Corp. and Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel case in the Court of International Trade is beyond the statute of limitations was made improperly and should be disregarded, the importers said in a May 17 surreply to DOJ's motion to dismiss. DOJ made its statute of limitations argument for the first time in its reply brief and not in the motion to dismiss, and in any case a question over the statute of limitations of its argument is not relevant to the court's subject matter jurisdiction counsel for Voestalpine and Bilstein argued (Voestalpine USA Corp. et al v. United States, CIT # 20-03829).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: