The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Husch Blackwell and one of its international trade partners, Jeffrey Neeley, committed legal malpractice when they went too far in a filing at the Court of International Trade subjecting imports of wood furniture to antidumping duties, Wego Chemical Group said in an Aug. 9 complaint at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A motion filed by Neeley mistakenly requesting an injunction be lifted on all entries subject to an antidumping duty period led to Wego needlessly paying over $325,000 in customs duties, the company said (Wego Chemical Group Inc. v. Husch Blackwell LLP et al., S.D.N.Y. #21-06689).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts was right to allow a new trial for Joseph Baptiste in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit said in an Aug. 9 opinion. Concurring with the district court that Baptiste's counsel was of such deficient performance to allow a retrial, a three-judge panel at the circuit court denied the U.S.'s appeal of the decision to run the trial back.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should find that pencil importer Prime Time Commerce did not exhaust its administrative remedies by failing to comment on the Commerce Department's remand results in the Court of International Trade, the Department of Justice told the appellate court. Despite its five attempts to obtain “gap-filling” information necessary to determine the correct antidumping rate in an administrative review, Prime Time did not comment on the case's remand results, meaning the importer stands in violation of the exhaustion doctrine that precludes judicial review, DOJ said in its reply brief (Prime Time Commerce, LLC v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-1783).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The defendant-intervenor in an antidumping duty case, the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, backed the Commerce Department's motion for voluntary remand since court precedent supports granting remands to correct issues in underlying determinations for the courts to review. Making its case in an Aug. 9 response, the union said that preventing Commerce from performing the review laid out in the remand would "serve no legitimate purpose." In another filing, the union opposed the case's mandatory respondent from intervening in the case due to an untimely bid (Pirelli Tyre Co., Ltd. et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00115).
Printed circuit board assembly importer Triumph Engine Control Systems moved to overturn the dismissal of four of its cases issued by the Court of International Trade in an Aug. 9 filing. Claiming that it clears the standard for reversing dismissals due to lack of prosecution set in the Supreme Court case Pioneer Inv. Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership, the importer requested an extension of the time to remain on the Customs Case Management Calendar (Triumph Engine Control Systems, LLC v. U.S., CIT #19-00108, #19-00109, #19-00110, #19-00130).
Commercial airline operator NetJets Aviation's request for leave to reassert Section 1581(i) jurisdiction in a customs challenge should jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) be unavailable should be denied, the Department of Justice said in Aug. 10 comments at the Court of International Trade. Further responding to its motion to partially dismiss NJA's case, DOJ said that the court lacks jurisdiction for the spat under Section 1581(i) and that NJA fails to even allege that this jurisdiction is available in its response (NetJets Aviation, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00142).
Plaintiffs, led by American Pacific Plywood, that stand accused of evading antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China vigorously challenged CBP's finding of evasion in an Aug. 5 brief backing their motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. In another case going after CBP's alleged violations of due process in Enforce and Protect Act investigations (see 2107010085), the plaintiffs argued that CBP's missteps are not merely procedural mistakes, but rather a "failure of essential process that led to profound harm." The violations are so egregious that they "would be unacceptable in any country that prides itself on democratic process -- and for the United States, they are a travesty," the brief said (American Pacific Plywood, Inc. et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03914).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: