The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 23 denied a petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc in an antidumping duty scope case filed by importers Smith-Cooper International and Sigma. Judges Kimberly Moore, Haldane Mayer, Alan Lourie, Timothy Dyk, Sharon Prost, Jimmie Reyna, Richard Taranto, Raymond Chen, Todd Hughes, Kara Stoll, Tiffany Cunningham and Leonard Stark denied the petition (Vandewater International v. United States, Fed. Cir. #s 23-1093, -1141).
The Court of International Trade on May 23 assigned a case challenging the elimination of the de minimis threshold on goods from China to Judges Gary Katzmann, Timothy Reif and Jane Restani. The court has assigned these same three judges to all cases challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.
Plaintiffs challenging tariff action under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in a D.C. court said a Florida court's recent decision transferring a separate IEEPA tariff case to the Court of International Trade doesn't settle the jurisdictional issue. Filing a brief on May 22, importers Learning Resources and Hand2Mind said the Florida court "came to the wrong conclusion" (Learning Resources v. Trump, D.D.C. # 25-01248).
The Court of International Trade on May 23 dismissed Wisconsin man Gary Barnes' case against the ability of the president to impose tariffs. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves held that Barnes didn't have standing because he failed to claim that any harm he would suffer by tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump is "particularized" or "actual or imminent."
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on May 16 issued a temporary restraining order against two logistics companies, barring them from using the U.S. Postal Service to ship packages with counterfeit postage.
Letex Apparels, a Hong Kong trading company, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging that CBP negligently seized or forfeited 26,016 of the company's imported garments valued at $460,743.36. The company argued that, in handling its merchandise, CBP failed to "exercise due care" in handling the goods and violated the company's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure, the Administrative Procedure Act and a federal rule of criminal procedure requiring the return of property held by the government that isn't needed for evidentiary purposes (Letex Apparels Co. v. United States, C.D. Cal. # 2:25-04462).
The Commerce Department improperly failed to respond to an antidumping duty petitioner's claim that a submission from AD review respondent Assan Aluminyum regarding its duty drawback adjustment didn't rebut, clarify or correct information submitted in the petitioner's rebuttal, the Court of International Trade held on May 21. Judge Gary Katzmann said Commerce can't pursue the goal of calculating an accurate dumping margin "without regard for procedural constraints."
Importer Detroit Axle on May 21 moved the Court of International Trade for a preliminary injunction and summary judgment against President Donald Trump's elimination of the de minimis exemption for Chinese goods and tariffs on Chinese products. In its motion, the importer argued that it's likely to succeed on the merits of its case, which outlines two bases for finding Trump's actions unlawful: that the president exceeded his statutory authority in ending de minimis for China, and that the agency actions implementing the order are arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (Axle of Dearborn, d/b/a Detroit Axle v. Dep't of Commerce, CIT # 25-00091).
Scott McBride, a former longtime official at the Commerce Department overseeing the administration of antidumping and countervailing duty laws, has joined The Bristol Group as counsel, the firm announced. McBride served at Commerce for over 25 years, most recently as associate deputy chief counsel for trade enforcement and compliance. He told us he stayed over the last few years to oversee the agency's major regulatory changes to its AD/CVD administration, which included the ability to address transnational subsidies (see 2505020067), then recently decided to take early retirement.
The following lawsuit was filed recently at the Court of International Trade: