Exporter Oman Fasteners asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 29 to dismiss petitioner Mid Continent Steel & Wire's appeal of a Court of International Trade decision imposing an injunction on the Commerce Department's antidumping duty cash deposits on Oman Fasteners' steel nail imports. The exporter said the injunction is no longer active because the Commerce Department completed the next administrative review of the AD order, so there is no live controvery in the case (Oman Fasteners v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 30 said that for drawback purposes the 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings should be read starting with their directly adjacent text and not the superior indented text. Judge Claire Kelly said the "plain meaning" of the statute governing substituted unused merchandise drawbacks refers to the "words describing the article adjacent to the 10-digit number."

Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

A Commerce Department scope ruling on T-series aluminum sheet "would overturn more than 10 years of black-letter law related to scope inquiries," importer Valeo North America told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 26. Filing an opening brief at the appellate court, Valeo said that Commerce bucked the traditional framework for finding if a good is within the scope of an antidumping and countervailing duty order by extending "beyond the express scope language" to rely on improper (k)(1) factors (Valeo North America v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1189).

DOJ likely will continue expanding its cooperation with foreign governments in investigating and prosecuting Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, Miller & Chevalier lawyer John Davis said in an interview. After a year that saw DOJ cooperate with South Africa and Colombia for the first time, Davis said, the agency will seek to work with more Latin American and European nations on FCPA enforcement.

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 29 granted in part and denied in part the U.S. bid to sanction a wristwatch exporter for late supplemental discovery materials. Judge Jane Restani said the exporter hadn't made a “sufficiently diligent” search for some of the materials, though she also said she was “mystified” by both parties’ actions involving others.

Chinese printer cartridge exporter Ninestar Corp. argued that it didn't need to exhaust its administrative remedies regarding its listing on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List before seeking judicial review because the case arises under the Administrative Procedure Act. As a result, exhaustion is required only when an agency rule requires appeal before review, Ninestar said (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).

An exporter Jan. 26 asked the Court of International Trade to review the Commerce Department’s rejection of a scope ruling application that the agency said was duplicative (Deer Park Glycine, LLC v. U.S., CIT # 24-00016).

Libertarian think tank Cato Institute asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for leave to file an amicus brief in support of a group of solar panel exporters' bid to have the court revisit its ruling sustaining President Donald Trump's revocation of a tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 25 said importer Fraserview Remanufacturing Inc. didn't need a protest to file suit at the trade court for its entries that were erroneously deemed liquidated while liquidation was suspended. Judge Timothy Reif said that because the statute for deemed liquidation requires the that entries not be suspended, CBP's notices of deemed liquidation didn't operate to actually liquidate the entries.