The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a Jan. 23 order denied plaintiff-appellants' motion for an expedited briefing schedule in an attorney conflict-of-interest case. Peter Marksteiner, clerk of the court, said that while the appellants, led by Amsted Rail Company, could "self-expedite the filing of their briefs," they failed to show that an expedited briefing was necessary (Amsted Rail Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sent back the Commerce Department's rejection of NLMK Pennsylvania's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusion requests, with Judge Claire Kelly finding Commerce didn't support its determinations that the objectors to the exclusion requests could provide "suitable substitutes" and make enough of the steel slab subject to the exclusion requests.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should reject plaintiff-appellants' bid for an expedited briefing schedule in an attorney conflict-of-interest case, defendant-intervenor-appellee Coalition of Freight Rail Coupler Producers argued in a Jan. 19 reply brief. The appellants, led by Amsted Rail Co., have failed to both establish good cause to expedite the appeal and show that they will suffer irreparable harm absent the accelerated schedule, since the underlying injury proceeding at the International Trade Commission will be subject to judicial review after the proceeding is finished, the coalition said (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

The Court of International Trade illegally applied a lower standard for its "substantially dependent" test when finding that certain subsidies apply to Spanish olive growers, improperly using a post-codification administrative decision to apply the lower standard, some Spanish olive growers argued. Filing their opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Jan. 17, the plaintiff-appellants said allowing Commerce to gauge its decisions against its own later rulings and not the unambiguous statute "would frustrate the core tenets of U.S. administrative law and allow Commerce to amend legislation through its own administrative process" (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1162).

The Commerce Department properly found that window wall system kits imported by Reflection Window + Wall are excluded from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Jan. 18 order. Judge Stephen Vaden held that Commerce appropriately held that the window wall systems qualified for the "finished goods kit" exclusion to the orders and were properly distinguished from curtain wall units. The judge added that the scope ruling does not cut against past scope decisions.

The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 18 opinion sent back an antidumping review over the Commerce Department's decision to reject AD petitioner Nucor Tubular's ministerial error comments as untimely. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said the exception to the requirement that comments be timely filed applies in this case since Commerce's "unintentional errors became apparent only in the Final Results" of the AD review. Since Nucor should have been allowed to submit its comments on the ministerial error, the court remanded the review to consider the error "and respond accordingly," the judge said.

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The Court of International Trade in a Jan. 16 paperless order denied a U.S. motion to exclude live testimony from plaintiff Oman Fasteners' CEO, Seve Karaga, in an antidumping duty case. The court said that Oman Fasteners can call Karaga to testify at the Jan. 23 hearing over the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction, though the testimony "shall be confined to the facts set forth in his declaration attached to Plaintiffs motion" (Oman Fasteners v. United States, CIT # 22-00348).

The Court of International Trade should have allowed a company that filed an attorney conflict-of-interest suit involving an International Trade Commission AD/CVD injury proceeding to amend its allegations to comply with the court's opinion, rather than dismissing the case outright with leave to file under a different jurisdictional provision, said the company, Amstead Rail Co., in an opening brief filed Jan. 13 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Amsted Rail Company v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1355).

The Commerce Department illegally found that Vandewater International's steel branch outlets are within the scope of an antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings, plaintiff-appellants Smith-Cooper International and Sigma Corp. argued in two Jan. 9 opening briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Both companies said that the term "butt-weld" has an unambiguous meaning according to the scope language and that the outlets at issue clearly do not fit within that definition. Smith-Cooper went on to argue that even if ambiguity is read into this term, the (k)(1) factors do not support including the outlets under the order (Vandewater International v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1093, -1141).