The U.S. and an importer of tapered roller bearings said in a Nov. 14 status report that they have reached a settlement agreement. The government brought its case against the importer seeking $97 million for unpaid antidumping duties (United States v. Wanxiang America Corp., CIT # 22-00205).
After the U.S. requested sanctions against a steel wire hanger importer for failing to respond to its complaint (see 2510300049), the importer -- being sued for allegedly dodging duties -- finally filed its amended answer Nov. 14 (United States v. Zhe “John” Liu, CIT # 22-00215, 23-00116, 24-00132).
In a Nov. 14 complaint, a cased pencils importer said CBP wrongly determined its novelty pencils were of Chinese origin and liquidated them at a 114.9% antidumping duty rate, having based its finding on an unrelated company-specific scope ruling (Raymond Geddes & Company v. United States, CIT # 25-00265).
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 granted default judgment against importer Rago Tires for negligence in importing tires by not declaring the goods as subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese truck and bus tires. Judge Joseph Laroski ordered Rago to pay a $14,108.87 penalty.
Should the Supreme Court rule that the tariffs administered under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are not valid, importers of record, who could potentially receive duty refunds, may also end up in legal battles with others who shared in the importer's tariff burden, founding member and principal of Sandler and Travis said during Flexport's Nov. 12 webinar on tariff trends.
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Petitioner Magnesia Carbon Bricks Fair Trade Committee will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision upholding the Commerce Department's exclusion of seven types of bricks imported by Fedmet Resources from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on magnesia carbon bricks from China (see 2510090016). The trade court said the exclusion of the bricks comports with a 2014 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision, which led to the standard that the addition of any amount of alumina to a magnesia carbon brick excludes it from the orders. The case was filed by Fedmet to contest the scope ruling, which came after a referral in an AD/CVD evasion case, on 11 of Fedmet's brick types. After CIT initially remanded the case to address the CAFC ruling, Commerce said seven of Fedmet's brick types are excluded from the order, since they have a non-zero alumina content (Fedmet Resources v. United States, CIT # 23-00117).
Eight more cases have been filed at the Court of International Trade contesting the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act following oral argument at the Supreme Court in the lead cases on the issue, during which many of the justices expressed skepticism over the validity of such tariffs.
In a Nov. 11 motion for judgment, a wind tower petitioner said that the Commerce Department’s administrative review of the antidumping duty order on South Korean utility-scale wind towers wrongly failed to adjust a respondent’s conversion costs and erred in constructing the respondent’s value using, in part, information dating back to when that respondent wasn’t profitable (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT # 25-00104).