Two Colorado companies and their top executives were indicted last month for conspiring to evade tariff payments on their imports of forklifts, DOJ announced on Sept. 30. The companies, Endless Sales and Octane Forklifts; current executives Brian Firkins and Jeffrey Blasdel; and former executive J.R. Antczak allegedly conspired to undervalue the forklifts from China at entry, then hide their Chinese origin and sell them to federal government agencies by declaring them to be made in the U.S.
The Commerce Department properly found that the South Korean government's full allotment of emissions permits under the Korean Emissions Trading System (K-ETS) was de facto specific, the Court of International Trade held in a decision made public Oct. 1.
The parties challenging tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act asked the Supreme Court to grant divided argument among the three groups of plaintiffs challenging the tariffs and to allow for 45 minutes of argument for each side. The three groups are five importers that filed suit at the Court of International Trade, 12 U.S. states that filed suit at CIT, and two importers that filed their case at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Donald J. Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, U.S. 25-250) (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, U.S. 24-1287).
The Commerce Department said its ACCESS system isn't receiving regular updates due to the federal government shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, the start of the 2026 fiscal year. All pending submissions in proceedings before the agency should be submitted by their current due date, the agency said.
Importer PF America dropped another case at the Court of International Trade seeking exclusions from Section 301 duties on its vinyl flooring imports. The importer entered the goods under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 3916.20.0020 and 9903.88.17, though CBP classified the goods under subheadings 3916.20.0091 and 9903.88.02, subjecting the flooring to Section 301 duties. Recently, PF America dropped a separate suit also seeking Section 301 exclusions on its flooring entries under a similar secondary subheading (see 2509190050) (PF America v. United States, CIT # 22-00255).
Andrew Dhuey, a patent attorney and court-appointed amicus, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week for permission to take part in the oral argument in a case on former Court of International Trade Judge Stephen Vaden's decision not to redact information deemed confidential by the International Trade Commission. Dhuey noted that a motions panel at the CAFC previously said his right to participate in oral argument shall be decided by the merits panel, and that the now-assigned merits panel has yet to issue a decision on the amicus' right to take part in the hearing (In Re United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1566).
The U.S. opened a customs penalty suit last week against wire garment hanger importer LGA Trading and its director, Galo Goya, at the Court of International Trade, seeking over $3.1 million as a penalty for negligence and over $1.9 million in unpaid duties (United States v. LGA Trading, CIT # 25-00214).
The likelihood of the Supreme Court striking down President Donald Trump's tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is a "coin flip," various attorneys said during a Sept. 30 webinar hosted by The Budget Lab, a policy research center at Yale University. Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute, an amicus in the IEEPA tariffs cases, noted a "very clear split" among trade lawyers and constitutional lawyers as to where the Supreme Court will come out on this issue.
Exporter Camel Group filed its motion for judgment against the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's decision not to remove the company from the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, arguing that the decision wasn't backed by substantial evidence or supported by a reasoned explanation. Camel said FLETF used the wrong standard of review in assessing its petition for removal from the UFLPA Entity List, arguing that the task force should have used a "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of a "reasonable cause to believe" standard" (Camel Group v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
The EU will appeal a World Trade Organization panel report in Indonesia's case against the EU's countervailing duties on Indonesian biodiesel to the defunct Appellate Body, the EU reported at the Sept. 26 meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body. The appeal effectively ends the dispute, since there's no Appellate Body division that will be able to hear the case due to vacancies on the Appellate Body.