Several news outlets reported that a settlement has been reached in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against companies that allegedly were involved in an effort to evade duties on aluminum extrusions. The Yuma News reported that “The Department of Justice announced last week that California-based C.R. Laurence Co. Inc., Florida-based Southeastern Aluminum Products Inc. and Texas-based Waterfall Group LLC have agreed to pay $2,300,000, $650,000 and $100,000, respectively, to resolve a lawsuit brought by the United States under the False Claims Act alleging that the companies engaged in schemes to evade customs duties on imports of aluminum extrusions from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” U.S. Glass quoted C.R. Laurence Co., Inc. president, Lloyd Talbert, “"While we deny engaging in any of the alleged wrongful conduct, we are happy to have reached this settlement agreement so that we can ensure that our resources and focus remain on best serving our customers' nee...

This year has started off with a bang!  The recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) that affirmed the Court of Internal Trade’s (CIT) determination in the curtain wall units and parts appeal was outstanding for the industry.  You can read more about that in the trade alert we sent the day the decision was announced here (http://aluminumextruderscouncil.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-court-of-appeals-for-federal.html))  Like this decision, there are a number of open issues we expect to see resolved in 2015.  The Department of Commerce (DOC) released its final determination in the second annual review in late December.  Overall, the final results were largely consistent with the Department’s preliminary results. With regard to the countervailing duty (CVD) results, by successfully persuading the Department not to use LME-based benchmarks, we were able to preserve much of the CVD margins . This is a good long-term precedent. ...