The U.S. cannot escape Congress' plain meaning in requiring CBP to distribute interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, "no matter how many new arguments DOJ throws into its brief on appeal," appellants led by Hilex Poly Co. argued in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DOJ tries to "rewrite history," seeing as its interpretation "flies in the face of the statute's command to distribute 'all interest,'" the brief said (Hilex Poly Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2106).

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The Court of International Trade on April 3 again sent back Commerce’s third remand redetermination in an antidumping duty investigation on steel nails from Taiwan.

The Commerce Department legally used the expected method to calculate the antidumping duty rate for non-individually examined respondents in the administrative review of the AD order on steel nails from Taiwan, the agency told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a reply brief. The agency used the total adverse facts available rate for two non-cooperative respondents as the all-others rate (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2128).

A recent appellate court ruling requiring the Commerce Department to pick more than one mandatory respondent in certain antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings doesn’t apply to all cases, the agency said. Commerce said "case-specific circumstances" free it of that obligation.

The statute of limitations in customs penalties runs from the date of entry, not from the date that the importer directed the violation to be committed, the Court of International Trade said in a March 31 decision that denied a motion to dismiss a fraud case against Florida businessman Zhe "John" Liu (U.S. v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT # 22-00215).

As filing day approaches, the calendar is marked with a big figurative red X, multiple alerts have been set and hours have been spent combing through documents to make sure the Commerce Department’s ACCESS system accepts the submission. But sometimes, despite all the preparation, something derails the process and the documents are turned in late. Suddenly, a routine part of the job has morphed into every lawyer’s nightmare -- a missed deadline.

The Commerce Department didn't adequately address questions raised by countervailing duty respondent Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. over the agency's use of certain benchmark information for the land program, the Court of International Trade ruled in a March 21 opinion made public March 29. Upholding parts and sending back parts of the 2016-17 administrative review of the CVD order on aluminum foil from China, Judge Timothy Reif said Commerce must reconsider its analysis of the contemporaneity of data it used for the land program benchmark.

CBP said that all wooden bedroom furniture imported by Aspects Furniture International was covered merchandise subject to an Enforce and Protect Act investigation despite a scope ruling from the Commerce Department finding that only two of six types of Aspects' furniture was covered merchandise. In remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade on March 27, CBP said the finding was justified due to adverse inferences levied against the importer (Aspects Furniture International v. U.S., CIT # 20-03824).

The Court of International Trade on March 29 dismissed a lawsuit from cell phone case maker Otter Products seeking interest on customs duty overpayments, finding it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Judge Claire Kelly held that the Administrative Procedure Act waiver of sovereign immunity only applies to interest on deposits linked with liquidated entries. As a result, there is no specific waiver of immunity related to Otter's claim for interest for its overpayments on tendered prior disclosures "under the no-interest rule," Kelly said.