The Commerce Department legally excluded importer Siffron's plastic shelf dividers from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on raw flexible magnets from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said that Commerce reasonably determined that the scope language and the (k)(1) sources, including prior scope rulings and a report from the International Trade Commission, established that the dividers didn't belong in the scope of the orders.

The U.S. urged the Supreme Court of the United States to reject importer PrimeSource Building Products' petition for a writ of certiorari in a case on the expansion of Section 232 duties onto "derivative" products, telling the high court that PrimeSource's separation of powers claims fall flat. While the importer said the case can give the court a chance to reconsider its approach to nondelegation, the government argued that, under the principle of stare decisis, the petitioner must identify a "special justification" for revisiting established law, which it has failed to do here (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Sup. Ct. # 23-69).

The Commerce Department properly hit exporter SeAH Steel Corp. with adverse facts available due to its failure to submit information on its use of the Korean Export-Import Bank Performance Guarantee program prior to the countervailing duty investigation period, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 26 opinion.

Importer Shamrock Building Materials laid out a "myriad of unsupported and unpersuasive arguments" against the Court of International Trade's finding that electrical conduit is properly classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 7306, the U.S. argued in a Sept. 22 reply brief. The government said the heading, which provides for "other tubes, pipes and hollow profiles" of iron or steel, exactly describes the electrical conduit, and that heading 8547, which covers "electric conduit tubing lined with insulating material," does not fit the bill (Shamrock Building Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1648).

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai laid out her priorities for reforming the World Trade Organization, providing concrete options that the U.S. and other WTO members can take to reinvigorate the international trade forum. In a Sept. 22 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Tai said that the biggest tenets of WTO reform revolve around "improving transparency," rebuilding the body's ability to negotiate new rules for new challenges and dispute settlement reform.

The U.S. filed a customs penalty lawsuit on Sept. 22 at the Court of International Trade against importer Rayson Global and its owner Doris Cheng, seeking a nearly $3.4 million penalty related to evaded antidumping and Section 301 duties on uncovered mattress innersprings from China. The complaint says the imports were transshipped from China through Thailand to avoid the duties (United States v. Rayson Global, CIT # 23-00201).

The Court of International Trade improperly relied on an adverse inference in rejecting importer Meyer Corp.'s claim for first sale treatment related to the valuation of its cookware imports, Meyer told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Sept. 21 reply brief. Meyer claimed that the trade court's inference, which the importer said is the "centerpiece" of the U.S. defense, is based solely on "pure speculation" and shows that the court committed "clear error" (Meyer Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1570).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 21 ruled in a customs classification case involving eight different categories of decorative plant parts, siding with importer Second Nature Designs on its preferred classification of two of the categories and with the government on one of the categories. Pertaining to three other categories, Judge Gary Katzmann said that there were fact questions remaining, leading the judge to deny summary judgment and advance litigation to its "second phase."

DOJ's administrative proceedings against SpaceX looking into whether the space exploration firm's hiring practices violated federal export control laws are unconstitutional, SpaceX said in a Sept. 15 complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Space Exploration Technologies v. Carol Bell, S.D. Tex. # 23-00137).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 20 upheld the Commerce Department's decision on remand to include importer SMA Surface's Twilight product within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on quartz surface products from China. Judge Gary Katzmann said that SMA Surfaces waived its challenge to the remand, which said the product doesn't qualify for the crushed glass surface product exclusion, by failing to present developed arguments in response to the remand decision.