The Court of International Trade ruled in an Oct. 18 opinion that the U.S. must respond to 25 of importer Greenlight Organic's requests for admissions in a customs fraud case. Having filed 116 of them, Greenlight, along with exporter Parambir Singh Aulakh, then moved to compel the U.S. to respond, hoping that they would narrow the scope of the fraud case and expedite the process. The court agreed with the U.S.'s objections to many of the RFAs, but ultimately granted the move to compel the U.S. to answer the remaining 25.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Taiwanese manufacturer Innolux Corporation launched its case against CBP's classification of the company's shipments of Hewlett-Packard 25-inch monitors, in an Oct. 15 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The case was originally filed in 2013 but placed on the reserve calendar, with counsel for Innolux filing for extensions of time to remain on the reserve calendar beginning in December 2014 (Innolux Corporation v. United States, CIT #13-00272).
The Court of International Trade granted a preliminary injunction against the liquidation of Chinese exporter Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co.'s wood cabinet and vanity entries, in an Oct. 18 order. Although Meisen filed for the PI after the 30-day period to move for an injunction, the court accepted its PI bid since the exporter showed good cause as to why the delay was necessary (Dalian Meisen Woodworking Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #20-00110).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Oct. 15 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The Court of International Trade granted the Department of Justice's motion to stay a case challenging the expansion of Section 232 duties on steel and aluminum “derivatives,” in an Oct. 14 order, due in part to the defendant's likelihood of succeeding on appeal. Finding that a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion indicates DOJ's chances of success at the appellate court, CIT also stayed any resulting liquidation but noted that the fact pattern in the present case reads differently from that of the recent Federal Circuit case.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The International Trade Commission granted four Curtis Mallet-Prevost lawyers access to a safeguard proceeding on behalf of LG Electronics, potentially ending a dispute at the Court of International Trade over denied access (see 2110130037) (LG Electronics USA, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT 21-00520). The ITC's one-page letter does not address larger issues in the case, such as the commission's power to deny access at all
CBP released its Oct. 13 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 55, No. 40), which includes the following ruling actions:
The Commerce Department is sticking by its preferred methodology for determining surrogate financial ratios in an antidumping duty case following a remand from the Court of International Trade, the department said in Oct. 12 remand results submitted to the court. 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 (The Ancientree Cabinet Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT # 20-00114).