No trade-related lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 denied Nebraska resident Byungmin Chae's petition for a rehearing of his petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of a question on his 2018 customs broker license exam. The decision marks the end of his legal remedies -- a process that saw Chae, mostly representing himself, take the case through multiple rounds of appeal at CBP, the Court of International Trade, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court (Byungmin Chae v. Janet Yellen, U.S. Sup. Ct. # 23-200).
Importer Hanon Systems Alabama dismissed at the Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 its lawsuit challenging the Commerce Department's finding that it's circumventing the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum foil from China by way of South Korea and Thailand (Hanon Systems Alabama Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00269).
The U.S. moved to dismiss a complaint from solar cell maker Auxin Solar and solar module designer Concept Clean Energy at the Court of International Trade challenging the Commerce Department's pause of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells and modules from Southeast Asian countries found to be circumventing the AD/CVD orders on these goods from China (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 denied a U.S. request for a voluntary remand to reconsider due process issues in an Enforce and Protect Act case involving cast iron soil pipe imports by Phoenix Metal, in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 23 sustained the Commerce Department's finding that oil piping from Brunei and the Philippines circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on oil country tubular goods from China.
The Netherlands' Rotterdam District Court on Jan. 15 sustained the Dutch National Bank's sanctions on an unnamed financial services provider, according to an unofficial translation. The court held that the bank "rightly" found that from July 2015 to March 2018, the financial services provider "systematically failed to comply with several core obligations" by "hardly conducting any customer due diligence" and failing to carry out any sanctions screening.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 22 issued its mandate in a pair of cases seeking to retroactively apply Section 301 tariff exclusions. In the suits, the appellate court sustained the dismissal of the cases for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that a protest must have been filed with CBP to properly effectuate relief. The Court of International Trade initially said jurisdiction was not to be had under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, since the court would have had jurisdiction under Section 1581(a) had a protest been filed (see 2209060035). The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that the true nature of the suits contests CBP's assessment of the duties and not the U.S. Trade Representative's decision to grant an exclusion, even though the exclusions were granted after the deadline for filing a protest had lapsed (ARP Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2176) (The Harrison Steel Castings Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 21-2177).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 19 invited the U.S. to respond to a petition from solar panel exporters, led by the Solar Energy Industries Association, to reconsider the case on President Donald Trump's decision to revoke a Section 201 tariff exclusion on bifacial solar panels. The court asked for a response by Feb. 2 (Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).