The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Nov. 15 sustained parts and remanded parts of the antidumping duty investigation on lemon juice from Brazil. Judge Claire Kelly rejected the Commerce Department's definition of "partners" in sending back the agency's finding that exporter Louis Dreyfus Co. Sucos and an unnamed supplier aren't affiliated. Conducting an analysis of the affiliation statute under Loper Bright, Kelly said Congress didn't expressly give Commerce the authority to define the term "partners." The judge then defined the term as "a for profit cooperative endeavor in which parties share in risk and reward." The judge remanded the issue for Commerce to apply this definition in its affiliation analysis between Louis Dreyfus Co. and the supplier.

The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Nov. 15 held that Congress meant to give the Commerce Department wide latitude to correct for "masked" dumping, sustaining the agency's differential pricing analysis. Judge Claire Kelly previously rejected exporter Garg Tube's challenge to the differential pricing analysis on the grounds that the company failed to exhaust its administrative remedies. In response to Garg's claim that the end of judicial deference to agencies' interpretations of federal statutes eliminated the need for exhaustion here, Kelly said this claim must fail because a statutory interpretation of the applicable statute doesn't "materially alter the result in this case." Kelly also sustained Commerce's decision on remand to drop its use of adverse facts available against Garg Tube.

The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Nov. 4 enjoined the liquidation of importer Retractable Technologies' entries of syringes during the course of its challenge to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's Section 301 tariff hike on needles and syringes. However, Judge Claire Kelly rejected Retractable's bids for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on the collection of Section 301 tariffs on needles and syringes, finding that Retractable failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm if the duties are collected. The judge added that the balance of equities and public interest both weigh against taking such action.

Swiss watch importer Ildico’s tariff classification case was dismissed Nov. 1 by Court of International Trade Judge Jane Restani. Looking at the common definition of the term “watch glass” -- using both British and American English dictionaries -- she determined that watch glasses on the backs of watches are part of the cases, so the synthetic crystal glass on the backs of the subject merchandise means their cases aren’t made wholly of precious metal. As a result, the judge found that the watches should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9102 for watches with cases made of materials other than precious metals, the heading preferred by the government, rejecting Ildico’s preferred heading, 9101 (Ildico v. U.S., CIT # 18-00136).

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 30 rejected the government's bid to dismiss importer Inspired Ventures' case challenging the exclusion of two of its tire entries from China for violating Transportation Department regulations. CBP said CIT didn't have jurisdiction to hear the case since the DOT made the admissibility decision and an entry at issue was seized, not excluded. Judge Lisa Wang disagreed, saying CBP, not DOT, has the vested authority to determine admissibility and that the entries were in fact excluded and not seized.

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's authority to "promulgate" its regulation allowing the agency to countervail Vietnam's currency undervaluation. However, Judge Timothy Reif issued a lengthy remand to the agency regarding whether exporter Kumho Tire (Vietnam) Co. benefited from the currency undervaluation in a countervailing duty investigation.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 24 said exporter The Ancientree Co. failed to timely raise its ministerial error allegation in an antidumping review on Chinese cabinets, finding that the company didn't file the allegation until after the final results even though the error was present in the preliminary findings. The company said its U.S. price should have been adjusted to account for an alleged subsidy it received from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program that was countervailed in the companion CVD proceeding. Judge Mark Barnett held that none of the exceptions to exhaustion applied.

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 25 sustained the International Trade Commission's decision on remand finding imports of Russian seamless pipe are non-negligible as part of the injury determination on the products. Judge M. Miller Baker said the commission adequately relied on data from two unnamed companies for determining the amount of in-scope imports from Germany and Mexico for purposes of the negligibility calculation. The judge added that exporter PAO TMK failed to argue before the ITC that it should have re-opened the record in handling the company's claims.

The Court of International Trade in a decision made public Oct. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's rejection of eight Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests from importer Seneca Foods Corp. Judge Gary Katzmann said the rejections were backed by substantial evidence after Commerce addressed various emails submitted by Seneca to show U.S. Steel's alleged inability to make tin mill products in sufficient quantity to satisfy the importer's needs. Katzmann added that Commerce's focus on "prospective evidence of steel production" is in line with the tariff's purpose and effect.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 affirmed CBP's classification of steel tubing with a thin interior coating mainly made of epoxy, melamine and silicon additives under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 7306, which covers certain iron or steel tubes and pipes. Judges Richard Taranto, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham said the goods, imported by Shamrock Building Materials, don't fit under heading 8547, which covers electrical conduit tubing lined with insulating material because the heading requires "commercially significant insulation of the conduit against current flow" -- which Shamrock's tubing doesn't have. The result is a 25% Section 232 tariff on the imports.