The Court of International Trade should circumvent the remand process and order the Commerce Department to grant exclusions to Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, steel company NLMK Pennsylvania argued in a July 22 brief. Likening its experience with the exclusion process at Commerce to "a bad remake of Groundhog Day," the plaintiff argued that Commerce has repeatedly ignored the record evidence which plainly shows that the U.S. companies do not have the capacity to fill NLMK's requests (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT #21-00507).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a July 22 order consolidated three customs cases concerning the proper classification of electric scooters, known as hoverboards. Two of the cases, including the now-lead case, were brought by 3BTech, while the remaining action was brought by Pro-Com Products. The cases were launched to argue that the hoverboards were classifiable under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9503.00.0090, which provides for "Tricycles, scooters, pedal cars and similar wheeled toys; dollsʼ carriages; dolls, other toys; reduced-scale ('scale') models and similar recreational models, working or not; puzzles of all kinds; parts and accessories thereof: Other," and allows subject goods to enter duty-free (see 2112100053) (3BTech Inc. v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00026).
The Commerce Department improperly deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from antidumping duty respondent Nippon Steel Corp.'s (NSC's) U.S. price, the exporter argued in a July 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Becoming the next company to make the claim, NSC argued that Section 232 duties are unlike the ordinary customs duties that are considered U.S. import duties and are in fact "far more similar" to antidumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguard duties, which are not deducted from U.S. price (Nippon Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00183).
The Court of International Trade should rule against the Commerce Department's move to reject questionnaire responses submitted 30 minutes late, antidumping respondent Zhejiang Zhouli Industrial argued in a July 21 complaint. Explaining the circumstances of the late submission, Zhouli said the rejection was a "drastic measure that was not warranted" and resulted in an adverse facts available rate. It urged the court to find the rejection to be an abuse of discretion (Zhejiang Zhouli v. U.S., CIT #22-00177).
Zhe "John" Liu and GL Paper Distribution owe the U.S. nearly $1 million for evading antidumping duties on steel wire hangers from China by transshipping the wire hangers through Malaysia, the U.S. argued in a July 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Alleging that Liu and GL Paper negligently avoided paying the duties, the U.S. took to the trade court to seek payment of the penalties, which equals the domestic value of the steel wire hanger entries made by GL Paper in 2017 (The United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT #22-00215).
The U,S, Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit needs to reconsider its dismissal of a broad challenge to President Donald Trump's Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, plaintiff-appellants in the case, led by USP Holdings, argued in a July 22 motion for reconsideration. The plaintiff-appellants said that the court "failed to consider" the effect of the Administrative Procedure Act on the standard of review issue when finding that the scope of judicial review given to the Commerce Secretary's determination of threat to impair national security was identical to that given to the president, whose findings are not subject to the APA (USP Holdings v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-1726).
The Commerce Department was not justified in using adverse facts available in an antidumping duty review on respondent Xinjiang Meihua Amino Acid Co. since the respondent was fully cooperative and there was no gap in the record, consolidated plaintiff Jianlong Biotechnology Co. argued in a July 19 brief at the Court of International Trade. Further, there is not record evidence supporting the fact that the 77.04% dumping margin Commerce assigned to the non-individually examined companies "reflects in any way the dumping rate of the cooperative separate rate respondents," Jianlong Biotechnology argued (Meihua Group International Trading (Hong Kong) v. United States, CIT Consol. #22-00069).
A recent Court of International Trade opinion finding that the U.S. cannot assert a counterclaim in customs classification litigation "is persuasive" in importer Second Nature Designs' case, the plaintiff argued in a July 20 notice of supplemental authority at the trade court. In Second Nature's case, the importer is seeking a different classification for its dried botanical entries. The U.S. has argued it can file counterclaims seeking its own preferred classification of the dried botanicals (see 2203230024). In the recent CIT opinion, Judge Claire Kelly held that the U.S. cannot make counterclaims in customs cases because there is no statutory authority to do so, redenominating the counterclaim as a defense (see 2207200052). Second Nature said in its notice that while the opinion is not binding, it's persuasive over the U.S.'s ability to assert a counterclaim (Second Nature Designs v. U.S., CIT #21-00271).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska should reconsider its ruling which found that the U.S. cannot pursue penalties for violations of the Jones Act from shipping companies Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management, the U.S. argued in a July 14 brief. The court "without explanation" reached an opposite conclusion over whether CBP modified treatment of a Canadian rail line, thus requiring a notice-and-comment period. The U.S. argues that this switch was "erroneous," and that the court should revisit its ruling (Kloosterboer International Forwarding v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198)