The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should not stay a case led by PrimeSource Building Products pending resolution of another action at the appellate court, the U.S. said in an Oct. 17 reply brief, arguing a stay is "based on nothing but pure speculation as to" PrimeSource's desired outcome of the separate matter. The "unjustifiable delay" that would stem from the stay would cause "inherent harm" to the government, so the stay should be denied, the U.S. said (PrimeSource Building Products Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-2128).
A September Court of International Trade decision finding that the U.S. cannot seize or forfeit imports of federally deemed "drug paraphernalia" whose delivery, possession and manufacture were made legal in Washington state may not be as applicable to other states as certain importers would like, trade lawyers told Trade Law Daily. Since the opinion rests heavily on the precise language of the Washington state law legalizing marijuana, the trade court's ruling will only make the most difference in states with a similar law, one attorney said.
CBP's Denial of PSCs Establishes Jurisdiction to Impose Section 232 Exclusions, Appellants Tell CAFC
CBP's denial of plaintiff-appellant Borusan Mannesmann's post summary corrections (PSCs) and administrative refund request constitutes a protestable decision, meaning Borusan had jurisdiction to seek Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions, Borusan and Gulf Coast Express Pipeline argued in an Oct. 17 opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The appellants also said that Federal Circuit precedent established that CBP's denial of a timely request for a refund of previously paid duties can constitute a protestable decision, and while these precedential opinions do not concern unliquidated entries as is the case with Borusan, there is nothing limiting these decisions (Borusan Mannesmann Boru Sanayi Ticaret v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-2097).
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 18 stopped the International Trade Commission from disclosing the business proprietary information (BPI) of a group of plaintiffs led by Amsted Rail Co. Judge Gary Katzmann granted the plaintiffs' move for a temporary restraining order in an action concerning whether the ITC violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the plaintiffs' 5th Amendment due process rights by giving its former lawyer access to its BPI in his new role as counsel to parties with adverse interests to ARC (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States International Trade Commission, CIT #22-00307).
An argument from apellees, including the Solar Energy Industries Association, in a Federal Circuit case that the safeguard statute implicitly limits the president to make "trade-liberalizing" measures relies on a "strained reading of the statutory contest," by placing undue emphasis on the fact that section 2254(b)(1)(B) lets the president find that the domestic industry "has made" a positive adjustment to import competition, the U.S. argued in an Oct. 17 reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This position "relies on an illusory distinction between complete and ongoing adjustment," the brief said (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1392).
Laboratory equipment distributor Intertech Trading Corp. was sentenced on Oct. 17 to pay a total fine of $140,000 for failing to file export information on shipments to Russia and Ukraine, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Hampshire announced. Intertech was ordered to pay the maximum fine of $10,000 per count for 14 counts of failure to file the export information required.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department properly applied to antidumping duty respondent Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems total adverse facts available, the U.S. said in response to Hyundai over Commerce's remand results at the Court of International Trade. The agency should not have hit the respondent with partial AFA, as Hyundai argued, since the missing service-related revenues (SRRs) on the record are not a limited and discrete category of information and since Hyundai's omission of one U.S. sale is significant, given the limited number of sales, the U.S. said (Hyundai Electric & Energy System Co. v. United States, CIT #20-00108).
The Commerce Department did not properly conduct its "primarily dedicated" analysis when it found that Nur Gemicilik ve Tic is a cross-owned input supplier of plaintiff Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret, Kaptan argued in an Oct. 11 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The U.S.'s position that Nur is a cross-owned input supplier since scrap is used in the production of subject merchandise and all of Nur's scrap generation was sold to Kaptan, thus making it "primarily dedicated" to the downstream product, cuts against the words of the countervailing duty preamble and Commerce's own precedent, Kaptan said (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, CIT #21-00565).
The Court of International Trade should stop the International Trade Commission from releasing a group of plaintiffs' business proprietary information (BPI) to its former counsel and his firm, Buchanan Ingersoll, given the former counsel's alleged "betrayal," the plaintiffs, led by Amsted Rail Co. (ARC), argued in an Oct. 14 complaint at the Court of International Trade. By not blocking the release of the BPI, the ITC is violating the Administrative Procedure Act and the plaintiffs' 5th Amendment due process rights, the brief said (Amsted Rail Co. v. United States International Trade Commission, CIT #22-00307).