Aluminum extrusion importer Global Aluminum Distributor filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Enforce and Protect A investigations, becoming the latest to challenge the process for countering antidumping duty evasion. In an April 28 complaint, Global Aluminum said CBP's EAPA process violated procedural requirements and the importer's constitutional rights related to due process and excessive fines, and that CBP is unfairly subjecting a company to two EAPA investigations for the same conduct and entries. Separate from other EAPA complaints, Global Aluminum claims that the duties assessed via the evasion finding constitutes a violation of the Eight Amendment for excessive fines.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders cannot be expanded to include goods that were not part of the International Trade Commission's original injury determination, Thai steel exporter Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company argued in an April 27 reply brief to the Court of International Trade. Citing, among other things, the fact that the ITC's final injury determination did not cover tariff subheadings for dual-stenciled pipe, Saha seeks to overturn the Commerce Department's final scope ruling that dual-stenciled pipe is subject to antidumping duties on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Company Limited v. U.S., CIT #20-00133). Saha says the trade court is bound by the precedent of a 1998 Federal Circuit decision involving Wheatland Tube.

The Commerce Department’s failure to verify data submitted by an Indian exporter of forged steel fittings during an antidumping duty investigation conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic means the agency should be ordered to go back and reexamine the exporter’s zero rate, the petitioners from that investigation said in a brief filed April 26 seeking a Court of International Trade remand (Bonney Forge Corporation et al v. U.S., CIT # 20-03837).

Porsche Motorsports North America filed a motion for summary judgment in the Court of International Trade, hoping to sway the court that automobile repair tools and parts the company exported to Canada then brought back into the U.S. should return duty free. In the April 26 filing, Porsche argued for classification under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9801.00.85 -- the subheading granting duty-free access to goods returning to the states after having been exported for use temporarily abroad -- claiming the parts are “tools of the trade” of car racing.

The Commerce Department essentially “committed fraud” against a Chinese shrimp exporter that had been revoked from an antidumping duty order but, because of Commerce’s own misspelling that the agency refuses to correct, found itself years later participating in an administrative review and being assigned an AD duty cash deposit rate, the exporter said in a brief filed April 26 at the Court of International Trade (Shantou Red Garden Food Processing Co., Ltd. et al v. U.S., CIT # 20-03947).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

Target Corporation launched a case in the Court of International Trade challenging one of the court's own decisions to order the reliquidation of metal top ironing tables at a higher antidumping duty rate. In an April 23 complaint, Target claimed that CIT's order, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision to uphold the order, to reliquidate the ironing tables at a higher 72.29% antidumping duty rate is illegal since the order came 90 days after the goods were liquidated by CBP.

CBP can still collect unpaid antidumping duties on a customs bond despite waiting nearly eight years after the relevant entries liquidated before demanding payment, the Justice Department said in a brief filed April 23. Aegis Security Insurance Co., which acted as surety on 10 entries of fresh garlic from China that was deemed liquidated 2006, says the statute of limitations had expired on the bond by the time CBP billed Aegis for the full continuous bond amount, $50,000, in 2014. “Because a customs bond is a contract, the [Federal Circuit] has held that a cause of action to enforce its obligations accrues when the terms of the bond are breached,” DOJ said. “In this case, the terms of the bond at issue were not breached by Aegis until CBP made a demand for payment against Aegis and Aegis failed to pay the duties within the time required by law.”

The Department of Justice on April 23 filed a motion to dismiss Root Sciences' Court of International Trade challenge of CBP's seizure of a shipment of a cannabis crude extract recovery machine. DOJ says that CIT lacks the jurisdiction to adjudicate challenges to CBP's seizure of goods, and the relevant federal district court is the proper venue to challenge seizures.