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

The Court of International Trade granted importer APS Auto Parts Specialist's voluntary dismissals of its two cases seeking Section 301 exclusions. APS challenged CBP's denial of its protest, claiming that its steel side protective attachment auto parts of Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8708.29.5060 qualify for Section 301 tariff exclusions under secondary subheading 9903.88.45. The importer dismissed the cases on May 28 (see 2505280045) (APS Auto Parts Specialist v. United States, CIT #s 21-00233, 21-00268).

Responding to the environmental group Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders NZ (see 2504280061, the New Zealand government and the United States each said that the environmental group was “fundamentally misunderstand[ing]” how the National Marine Fisheries Service conducts comparability analyses and was wrongly pointing to a typographical error to support its conclusion as to the remaining population of endangered Maui dolphins (Maui and Hector's Dolphin Defenders NZ v. National Marine Fisheries Service, CIT # 24-00218).

The U.S. sought partial dismissal May 7 of power cables importer PowerTec Solutions’ 2022 case seeking Section 301 duty refunds. Specifically, it said that one of the importer’s administrative protests was insufficient to support a subsequent legal challenge (PowerTec Solutions International v. United States, CIT # 22-00322).

In a complaint brought to the Court of International Trade on May 30, exporters Kumar Industries and Bajaj Healthcare Limited pushed back against the Commerce Department’s review of the antidumping duty order on Indian-origin glycine. Kumar was hit with adverse facts available after the Commerce Department found it failed to adequately report affiliation with four other companies (Kumar Industries v. United States, CIT # 25-00081).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave plaintiffs in a case challenging tariff action taken under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act until June 4 to respond to the government's motion to stay the D.C. district court's ruling finding that IEEPA doesn't confer tariff-setting authority. The government then has until June 6 to respond, setting up an expedited schedule on which the appellate court will hear the emergency stay motion, which the U.S. has said is crucial for ongoing U.S. trade negotiations (Learning Resources v. Donald J. Trump, D.C. Cir. # 25-5202).

The U.S. District Court for the District of Montana rejected four members of the Blackfeet Nation tribe's bid to get the Montana court to reconsider its decision to transfer a challenge to tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to the Court of International Trade. Judge Dana Christensen said that now that the trade court has made an "express finding of its own jurisdiction," when it vacated the executive orders imposed by President Donald Trump implementing tariffs under IEEPA, "the Court concludes that transfer remains the appropriate action" (Susan Webber v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, D.Mont. # 4:25-00026).

A law firm said May 23 that the U.S. was failing to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act partly because it was relying on a “novelly broad” interpretation of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).

The Court of International Trade in a confidential May 30 order remanded parts and sustained parts of the Commerce Department's 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on Chinese solar cells. Judge Claire Kelly sustained Commerce's valuation of air freight but sent back the agency's valuation of solar glass under Romanian Harmonized System subheading 7007.19.80 and its methodology for calculating adverse facts available. The judge also sent back Commerce's "determination of the review specific rate" for exporters JA Solar and BYD. Kelly gave the parties until June 5 to review the confidential information in the decision before the court releases a public version (Jinko Solar Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00219).

Importer FCMT filed a trio of complaints at the Court of International Trade last week challenging CBP's appraisement of its apparel entries. In all three cases, the importer argued that CBP failed to use the products' transaction value to appraise the merchandise and that CBP engaged in an "arbitrary and fictitious appraisement" of the merchandise (FCMT v. United States, CIT #s 21-00242, -00243, -00247).