Jennifer Nordquist has been appointed to serve as the new deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, replacing Angela Ellard who will step down at the end of August, WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala announced on July 28. Nordquist, whose appointment is effective Oct. 1, currently serves as counselor on the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House. She previously served as executive vice president of the Economic Innovation Group, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, executive director for the U.S. at the World Bank Group, and chief of staff and deputy of economic studies at the Brookings Institution.
Importers Global Plastics and Marco Polo International agreed to pay $6.8 million to settle claims that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly failing to pay customs duties on plastic resin from China, DOJ announced. The U.S. said Global Plastics and Marco Polo, both subsidiaries of MGI International, received credit for "cooperating with the government."
Importer Grosfillex agreed to pay $4.9 million to settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act by evading antidumping and countervailing duties on items made with aluminum extrusions from China, DOJ announced. The FCA case was initially filed by Edward Wisner, a former employee of Grosfillex and whistleblower in the case, who will receive a $962,662.74 cut of the settlement.
Importer Tri State Honey on July 24 dropped its lawsuit at the Court of International Trade on CBP's detention of its 11 honey shipments. In filing the suit, the company said CBP unlawfully detained the shipments and held them for nearly a year without explanation (see 2504300014). The importer was seeking at least $4 million in damages along with attorney's fees, since CBP allegedly violated the company's "due process rights" by failing to disclose the reasons for the detention of its honey and the evidence as to the honey's country of origin. Counsel for Tri State Honey didn't respond to a request for comment (Tri State Honey v. United States, CIT # 25-00080).
The U.S. asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer the latest International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariff lawsuit to the Court of International Trade and to stay briefing on the companies' challenging the tariffs' motion for summary judgment pending resolution of the transfer motion. The government said four courts have found that CIT has exclusive jurisdiction over cases challenging the legality of tariffs imposed under IEEPA, while just one has "declined to transfer the case to the CIT or dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction" (FIREDISC, Inc. v. Donald J. Trump, W.D. Tex. # 25-01134).
The Commerce Department cannot investigate "transnational" subsidies, countervailing duty respondent Kukdo Chemical argued in a July 25 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Challenging the countervailing duty investigation on epoxy resins from South Korea, Kukdo said it's challenging "any and all substantive aspects of Commerce's" finding that the company received a countervailable subsidy via the provision of Epichlorohydrin (ECH) for less than adequate remuneration from China (Kukdo Chemical v. United States, CIT # 25-00146).
The Court of International Trade on July 28 denied importer Detroit Axle's motion for a preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump's decision to end the de minimis threshold on goods from China, which was made under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Judges Gary Katzmann, Timothy Reif and Jane Restani said they already have granted all the relief the importer is seeking, though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit stayed that relief.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 28 sustained the Commerce Department's non-market economy policy in antidumping duty proceedings despite the fact that the agency hadn't codified the policy in its regulations at the time the underlying review was challenged. Judges Todd Hughes, William Bryson and Leonard Stark said the Federal Circuit has a long line of cases upholding the policy and that, even if those cases didn't exist, Commerce didn't need to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking to implement the policy.
Importer Fanuc Robotics America and the U.S. settled a customs case on the importer's robot mechanical units and robot control units. While the robot mechanical units were classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8479.5.000, dutiable at 2.5%, and the robot control units were classified under subheading 8537.10.90, dutiable at 2.7%, CBP agreed to liquidate the products under subheading 8428.90.00, free of duty; subheading 8515.21.00, free of duty; and 8515.310.00, dutiable at 1.6%. Settlement negotiations in the case proceeded over the past year specifically on two models of robot control units (see 2408260050) (Fanuc Robotics America v. U.S., CIT # 12-00052).
Elio Gonzalez, a former Commerce Department attorney, has joined Alston & Bird as counsel in the Washington D.C. office, Gonzalez announced on LinkedIn. Gonzalez worked at Commerce for the past six years, joining as an attorney in 2019 and rising to assistant chief counsel in September 2024 before departing from the agency. Prior to joining Commerce, Gonzalez served as an attorney at CBP in Long Beach, California, for nearly five years.