Palm oil importer Virtus Nutrition's wish for an expedited briefing schedule has hit a snag, with the Department of Justice filing its opposition to the importer's application for an order directing the U.S. government to show cause why an expedited litigation schedule should not be entered in the Court of International Trade. Due to the case involving a "complex, novel legal issue" and a longer discovery period for the case, DOJ argued Virtus' request for a shortened litigation timeline should be nixed. The case involves Virtus' more than $2 million in palm oil imports from Malaysia held up by CBP over suspicions of having been made with forced labor, in violation of a Withhold Release Order (Virtus Nutrition, LLC v. United States, CIT # 21-00165).

The preliminary injunction that the Section 301 plaintiffs seek to freeze liquidations of unliquidated customs entries from China with lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure (see 2104260010) is “unwarranted,” falls short of the high legal "bar" required and “would impose an enormous administrative burden” on CBP when the agency’s resources already are stretched thin, DOJ’s May 14 opposition argued at the Court of International Trade. Importers filed for the injunction April 23 after DOJ wouldn't stipulate it would support refunds of liquidated entries if the plaintiffs won the litigation and the tariffs were ruled unlawful.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the Court of International Trade's decision to reject a Commerce Department methodology for calculating antidumping duty margins, in a May 14 opinion. In the ruling, the Federal Circuit found Commerce's attempt to allocate import duties exempted or rebated "based on the import duty absorbed into, or imbedded in, the overall cost of producing the merchandise under consideration," when constructing the export price in an AD review, was unsupported by the law. Commerce attempted this new methodology for calculating the U.S. price for Indian exporter Uttam Galva Steels Limited in an antidumping duty investigation into corrosion-resistent steel products (CORE) from India.

The Court of International Trade remanded an antidumping case on off-the-road tires from China for a second time, ruling that the Commerce Department failed to provide substantial evidence in determining that two respondents were under de facto government control and not warranting of an individual AD rate. Commerce had determined the Chinese government controlled export functions for Aeolus Tyre and Guizho Tyre Co. (GTC). Judge Timothy Stanceu disagreed in a May 14 opinion. The first remand was in 2019.

Palm oil importer Virtus Nutrition, LLC wants an expedited ruling on itsmore than $2 million in palm oil imports held up by CBP, filing a motion for assignment of a judge and an application for an order directing the U.S. government to show cause why an expedited litigation schedule should not be entered on May 12. Due to storage fees of over $35,000 a month agreed to between Virtus and the port director of CBP for the Port of San Francisco/Oakland, the importer wants to quickly get a ruling on the case and free up the palm oil imports.

A group of importers involved in the litigation over the Section 301 tariffs sent a letter on May 7 to the White House urging a settlement in the case to "alleviate the economic and social harms these tariffs have caused to U.S. companies, U.S. workers and the overall U.S. economy." Led by the importers selected to serve as the test case for the litigation, HMTX Industries and Jasco Products Company, the companies told the White House they are seeking an end to the tariffs and a full refund of the "unlawfully" collected lists 3 and 4A duties collected from the companies. The case is currently making its way through the Court of International Trade.

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The Commerce Department flipped its affirmative antidumping and countervailing duty circumvention rulings on certain hardwood plywood products from China following remand instructions from the Court of International Trade. In its May 10 remand redetermination filing, Commerce reconsidered evidence it initially determined to be untimely submitted and found that certain hardwood plywood products were not developed after Dec. 8, 2016, AD/CVD orders (Shelter Forest International Acquisition Inc., et al. v. U.S., CIT # 19-00212). The hardwood plywood in question had three qualities: 1) contained face and back veneers of radiata or agathis pine, 2) had a Toxic Substances Control Act or California Air Resources Board label certifying compliance with TSCA/CARB requirements, and 3) was made with a resin, the majority of which is composed of urea-formaldehyde, polyvinyl acetate or soy.

A Department of Justice defense of President Donald Trump's decision to eliminate a tariff exemption for bifacial solar panels would upend “well-settled principles of judicial review,” counsel for Solar Energy Industries Association argued in a May 7 response to DOJ's motion to dismiss. The DOJ argued that the Court of International Trade isn't permitted to review a president's factual determinations when determining if the tariff actions followed statute. Seeing as the president is only explicitly allowed to adjust previous safeguard measures to a product “after a majority of the representatives of the domestic industry submits to the President a petition requesting such reduction, modification, or termination on such basis, that the domestic industry has made a positive adjustment to import competition,” the questions of whether that petition was submitted and if domestic industry has indeed made the requisite adjustments have become central ones to the case.

Cookware importer Meyer Corporation is appealing a Court of International Trade ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit over whether the importer can use the first sale valuation method for its cookware imports brought in from Thailand and China, according to a May 10 filing. The original March 1 CIT decision raised eyebrows after Judge Thomas Aquilino called into question the use of first sale with non-market economies. The Department of Justice recently cited the Meyer case in another lawsuit over first sale valuation (see 2104300049).