The Court of International Trade again struck down the Trump administration's withdrawal of an exclusion from the Section 201 solar safeguard measures for bifacial solar panels, in its second opinion rejecting Trump administration's elimination of the exclusion as many days. Judge Gary Katzmann found that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's exclusion withdrawal was an "arbitrary and capricious agency decision" and represented a move with no statutory authority. Just a day earlier, Katzmann ruled against a presidential proclamation attempting to withdraw the bifacial panel exclusion, which came as a direct response to the CIT's preliminary injunction in the case over the USTR's move.
The 1974 Trade Act “does not authorize” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to increase the “original” Section 301 lists 1 and 2 tariffs on Chinese goods under the “circumstances present” in the lists 3 and 4A duties, argued Akin Gump lawyers for sample case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products, in their final written brief Nov. 15 at the Court of International Trade before the litigation moves to oral argument Feb. 1, 2022. HMTX and Jasco, plus the thousands of complaints their September 2020 lawsuit sparked, seek to get the lists 3 and 4A tariffs thrown out and the paid duties refunded with interest.
Transpacific Plaintiffs to Petition SCOTUS Over Decision Permitting Post-Deadline Section 232 Action
A key U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that found that the president can impose greater Section 232 national security tariffs beyond the 105-day deadline for action laid out in the statute is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Transpacific Steel, Borusan Mannesmann and The Jordan International Company filed a petition Nov. 12 in an attempt to get the high court to side with the original Court of International Trade decision, which held that the president may not make such adjustments.
Dali Bagrou, of Alpharetta, Georgia, and owner of World Mining and Oil Supply, was sentenced to 51 months in prison accompanied by three years of supervised release for his role in a scheme to evade U.S. national security laws, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia said. World Mining was sentenced to five years' probation.
CBP continued to find that Leco Supply Co. continued to evade antidumping and countervailing duties on wire hangers from Vietnam, after voluntarily requesting a remand from the Court of International Trade to reconsider the case. Submitting its results in a Nov. 10 filing at CIT, CBP included information not previously considered in its determination and also released revised public summaries of the business confidential information (BCI), in line with a recent CIT decision (Leco Supply, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00136).
The three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade presiding over the Section 301 litigation scheduled oral argument in the HMTX Industries-Jasco Products sample case for Feb. 1, 2022, at 10 a.m. in the court's Ceremonial Courtroom in New York, an order entered Nov. 12 in master case docket 21-cv-52 said. Chief Judge Mark Barnett had asked lawyers from both sides at a virtual status conference Nov.10 to email the court by Nov. 12 about schedule conflicts they had in January and February.
Antidumping petitioner American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance voiced its support for the Commerce Department's remand results in Nov.10 comments submitted to the Court of International Trade. After CIT remanded the case to Commerce for its failure to address the concerns of the mandatory respondent, the agency returned with a more thorough backing of its surrogate financial ratio decision that it believes adequately addresses the respondent's concerns (see 2110130053) (The Ancientree Cabinet Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT # 20-00114).
An importer says CBP is incorrectly using a purported “transaction value” to appraise its imports of domestically sold goods from a Canadian warehouse, and that CBP should accept its original appraisal using deductive value because no foreign sale for exportation occurred.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Three Court of International Trade cases filed by Janssen Ortho were assigned to Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves and stayed following prompting from Janssen and the Department of Justice. The three orders from CIT stay the cases for 90 days pending the calculation of refunds in another CIT case brought by Janssen since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion on appeal. In April, the Federal Circuit upheld Choe-Groves' decision that the active pharmaceutical ingredient imported by Janssen in one of its HIV medications is eligible for duty-free treatment (see 2104260034). Janssen and DOJ requested that Choe-Groves to be assigned to the cases since she presided over the original CIT case (see 2111010072) (Janssen Ortho LLC v. U.S., CIT #13-00052, #14-00094, #14-00198).