The Court of International in a July 7 opinion upheld CBP's decision to deny Shuzhen Zhong a customs broker's license. Zhong, appearing pro se and seeking to get to a passing grade of 75% or higher on a customs broker license exam, appealed the answers to two questions. Judge Jane Restani ruled that CBP's decision to deny credit for both questions was backed by substantial evidence.
The Court of International Trade properly held that President Donald Trump violated the law by revoking an exclusion on bifacial solar panels from the Section 201 safeguard duties, plaintiff-appellees led by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Invenergy Renewables said in two reply briefs at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. SEIA, in its brief, along with Nextera Energy, argued that the trade court correctly found that "all the tools of statutory construction" show that the law prevents trade-restrictive changes to the safeguard measure (Solar Energy Industries Association v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1392).
CBP improperly classified wearable blankets in contravention of its own guidance, said Cozy Comfort in a June 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Cozy Comfort v. U.S., #22-00173). The agency's rate advance ran counter to its own guidance that sherpa-lined garments are not classifiable in heading 6110.
The Court of International Trade in a July 6 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's decision to grant a level-of-trade (LOT) adjustment for antidumping duty respondent Productos Laminados de Monterrey S.A. de C.V. (Prolamsa). Judge Timothy Stanceu sustained the LOT adjustment that Commerce made following the judge's initial remand order. The court ruled that petitioner Nucor Tubular Products' arguments that the higher selling expenses for one avenue of Prolamsa's trade were due to higher manufacturing costs and not higher selling expenses were "entirely speculative, if not illogical."
The Supreme Court's landmark ruling June 30 that curbed the Environmental Protection Agency's power to issue regulations intended to counter climate change is unlikely to have ramifications for trade cases at the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but there is a chance some trade actions with a larger scope could be affected, trade lawyers said in recent days.
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to issue questionnaires in lieu of on-site verification due to the COVID-19-related travel restrictions in 2020 following an order from the Court of International Trade to either conduct verification virtually or further explain its original decision. The agency in June 30 remand results said that the plaintiffs, led by Bonney Forge, raised the issue of conducting a virtual verification too late and that mandatory respondent Shakti Forge Industries' questionnaire responses provide a "reasonable alternative" to on-site or remote verification (Bonney Forge Corporation v. United States, CIT #20-03837).
The Court of International Trade in a July 1 order granted the U.S.'s motion for entry of confession of judgment in a customs case on imported hardwood plywood from Richmond International Forest Products (RIFP). In all, Richmond filed four cases over 60 entries of hardwood plywood, which CBP classified as of Chinese-origin, assessing antidumping, countervailing and Section 301 duties, along with a merchandise processing fee. RIFP argued that the plywood is from Cambodia, filing a series of protests that CBP denied (Richmond International Forest Products Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00178).
The Court of International Trade in a June 30 opinion upheld the Labor Department's decision to deny a group of former AT&T call center workers trade adjustment assistance, ruling that the department "(finally) gets it right," following two previous remand orders. Judge M. Miller Baker ruled that Labor adequately explained the evidence it relied on, asserting that the department appropriately relied on certified information to declare that the company did not offshore the plaintiffs' call center jobs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit owes no deference to CBP's procedures in an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion investigation since those procedures violated importer Royal Brush Manufacturing's due process rights, the importer argued in a June 30 reply brief. Royal Brush also argued that CBP's decision to not give the importer access to business confidential information in the Enforce and Protect Act proceeding is a problem of CBP's own creation, and that the U.S. offers insufficient defenses of the company's constitutional due process claims (Royal Brush Manufacturing Inc. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1226).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: