The Commerce Department continued to find that Vandewater International's steel branch outlets fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China in July 23 remand results. Following an October 2020 Court of International Trade opinion finding that Commerce had failed to sufficiently explain its ruling (see 2010190031), the agency took another look at the scope ruling and provided a more thorough explanation of its holding. For instance, Commerce said that the physical characteristics of the steel branch outlets are similar to the characteristics of the carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings (Vandewater International, Inc. v. United States, CIT #18-00199).

The Commerce Department wants another look at an antidumping review after CBP brought to light new evidence that questioned the accuracy of the mandatory respondent's U.S. sales data and reported affiliates, in a July 20 motion for a voluntarily remand. In the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, Commerce picked Shandong New Continent as the mandatory respondent and found a zero percent dumping margin for the exporter (Pirelli Tyre Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00115). After the review, CBP alerted Commerce as to certain inaccuracies in SNC's reported sales prices on imports of the tires in question. "When potentially new and material evidence comes to light, it is appropriate for this Court to consider a remand to the agency," the motion said. The case was brought by Pirelli Tyre Co., which challenged the country-wide dumping rate it was given in the administrative review, according to its May 2020 complaint.

Greenlight Organic accused the U.S. government of invoking various "evasive tactics" in avoiding providing sufficient answers to the company's requests for admissions (RFAs) in a Court of International Trade case over the importer's alleged misclassification of imports to skirt duties. In a July 23 motion to compel the U.S. to respond to Greenlight's 116 RFAs, the importer wants the court to force the government to issue responses and overturn its objections that the requests were "incoherent and prevented a meaningful response" (United States v. Greenlight Organic, Inc. et al., CIT #17-00031).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Electralloy/G.O. Carlson will appeal to the U.A. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit a Court of International Trade decision denying it the right to intervene in two Section 232 tariff exclusion challenges, it said in two July 23 notices of appeal. Judge M. Miller Baker of CIT rejected the company's intervention bid since the company doesn't have a legally protected interest in the case, a direct relationship with the litigation where it would gain or lose by the judgment, nor any demonstration that its interests will not be addressed by the government defense (see 2105260037). The U.S. Steel Corporation also tried to intervene in various Section 232 challenges, and filed its own appeal of the denied interventions on July 22 (see 2107220041). The company filed two more notices of appeal in two other Section 232 challenges on July 23.

The Labor Department continued to find that a unionized group of former AT&T call center employees are not entitled to trade adjustment assistance for outsourced jobs in July 22 remand results filed in the Court of International Trade. On May 4, the court remanded the case to the agency after Judge M. Miller Baker found that Labor failed to discuss or even reference the union's evidence of why the trade adjustment case was warranted in its determination (see 2105040032) (Communications Workers of America Local 4123, on behalf of Former Employees of AT&T Services, Inc. v. United States Secretary of Labor, CIT #20-00075).

The Commerce Department was wrong to "jettison" its prior regulations in not adjusting for the indirect reimbursement for antidumping duties paid in an administrative review on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia, the U.S. Steel Corporation said in a July 13 reply brief. Responding to arguments made by Commerce and defendant-intervenor BlueScope Steel, U.S. Steel argued that the scope of Commerce's reimbursement regulation includes both direct and indirect reimbursement, which runs counter to Commerce's decision to not adjust for indirect reimbursement.

The Commerce Department requested a voluntary remand on July 22 to reconsider exclusion requests made for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. In what is becoming a trend of the agency seeking remands at the Court of International Trade in cases over tariff exclusion requests (see 2107220057), Commerce wants to establish a new and independent review of the record to weigh all the evidence in the case. In light of the JSW Steel, Inc. v. United States CIT decision, which found that Commerce's exclusion request denials were "devoid of explanation and frustrate judicial review," the agency needs to take another look at its denials, it said (Evraz Inc. NA v. United States, CIT #20-03869).

The Court of International Trade should dismiss an importer's challenge of CBP's deemed exclusion of its apparel imports because the protest was filed the day before the apparel was actually deemed excluded, the Department of Justice said in a July 19 brief backing the motion to dismiss. Due to this premature filing, DOJ said the court lacks Section 1581(a) jurisdiction on the matter (Alive Distributor Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00236).

Importers ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings will file an appeal of a Court of International Trade opinion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, according to a July 21 notice of appeal. The decision, penned by Judge Miller Baker, found importers must file protests to preserve their ability to obtain refunds under Section 301 tariff exclusions (see 2106110053). The court said it did not have the jurisdiction to hear ARP and Harrison's challenge because the importers did not timely file protests of the CBP liquidations imposing the Section 301 tariffs (The Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States, CIT #20-00147).