CBP's Office of Regulations and Rulings (ORR) ignored key evidence when it reversed the same agency's Trade Remedy & Law Enforcement Directorate's (TRLED) finding that importer Scioto Valley Woodworking evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, petitioner American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance said in a July 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. U.S., CIT # 23-00140).

The Court of International Trade remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's countervailing duty investigation of phosphate fertilizers from Russia. CIT Judge Jane Restani in a July 11 opinion upheld Commerce's tier-three benchmark calculation for natural gas, which included the import-specific 20% value-added tax and 5% import duty, along with the agency's decision to countervail phosphate rock mining licenses issued by the Russian government to exporters EuroChem and PhosAgro. Restani remanded Commerce's decision to use a "profit before tax" figure to account for exported phosphate rock prices when calculating PhosAgro's profit ratio, as well as Commerce's reliance on PhosAgro's cost information and its explanation for why it found EuroChem's cost information supported.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 11 opinion affirmed the Court of International Trade's opinion upholding the Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available against countervailing duty respondent Jangho Group in a case on the 2013 review of the CVD order on aluminum extrusions from China. The two-page order from Judges Kimberly Moore, Alan Lourie and Tiffany Cunningham was issued without an explanation of the ruling.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on July 11 ordered U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman to "engage in informal mediation" with at least one of her appeals court colleagues -- Judges Kimberly Moore, Sharon Prost or Richard Taranto -- regarding the trio's investigation on Newman's fitness to continue serving on the Federal Circuit. The mediation shall occur before Judge Thomas Griffith, who sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2020 (Pauline Newman v. Kimberly A. Moore, D.D.C. # 23-01334).

Judge Todd Hughes at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during July 10 oral argument expressed doubt over antidumping duty petitioner Wheatland Tube's claim that the Commerce Department can make a cost-based particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test where normal value is based on constructed value. The judge referenced the Federal Circuit's past ruling in Hyundai Steel v. U.S., which found that cost-based PMS adjustments cannot be made to the sales-below-cost test (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1175).

The Commerce Department failed to explain its deviation from its past decision finding that exporter KG Dongbu Steel's first through third debt-to-equity restructurings were not countervailable, the Court of International Trade said in a July 7 opinion. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that the evidence Commerce cited in justifying the past decision did not directly deal with these three restructurings and is thus "not a sufficient explanation to justify departing from its standard practice." Choe-Groves also sent back Commerce's uncreditworthy benchmark rate because the department failed to address potentially contradictory evidence as part of the 2019 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on corrosion-resistant steel goods from South Korea.

A new U.K. law that could prevent lawyers from providing certain legal services in the context of Russia sanctions is causing uncertainty within the legal industry, law firms said. Baker McKenzie said the legal community is working with U.K. authorities to “clarify the scope of the new sanctions measures,” but “in lieu of any imminent published guidance, businesses should assess” their in-house legal teams, particularly if they’re providing legal advisory services from the U.K.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 5 dismissed importer Amsted Rail's conflict-of-interest suit concerning attorney Daniel Pickard and his firm, Buchanan Ingersoll, in an injury proceeding at the International Trade Commission. Amsted Rail filed a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal a few days prior in the suit that the Court of International Trade previously dismissed for lack of jurisdiction (see 2211160057).

The Court of International Trade on July 6 again remanded the Commerce Department's refusal to start a successor-in-interest changed circumstances review for exporter GreenFirst Forest Products under the countervailing duty investigation on softwood lumber products from Canada, finding the agency did not address CIT's concerns in an initial remand about how the agency's successor-in-interest practice applies to non-individually examined companies