Parties in an antidumping duty case at the Court of International Trade continued their dispute on whether the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo should eliminate any deference shown to the Commerce Department's definition of the term "partners" in 19 U.S.C. Section 1677(33) (Ventura Coastal v. U.S., CIT # 23-00009).
Court of International Trade
The United States Court of International Trade is a federal court which has national jurisdiction over civil actions regarding the customs and international trade laws of the United States. The Court was established under Article III of the Constitution by the Customs Courts Act of 1980. The Court consists of nine judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is located in New York City. The Court has jurisdiction throughout the United States and has exclusive jurisdictional authority to decide civil action pertaining to international trade against the United States or entities representing the United States.
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 5 held that a CBP HQ ruling on see-through pop-up tent "pods" wasn't subject to notice and comment requirements because a prior protest approval on the goods wasn't a "prior interpretive ruling or decision." Judge Timothy Reif said the protest approval wasn't the result of "considered deliberations" because CBP's Regulations and Rulings office wasn't involved, and that the decision didn't have "prospective effect" and wasn't "interpretive."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during oral argument on Sept. 3 strongly questioned the U.S. in a customs case on whether cookware imports from Meyer Corp. qualify for first sale treatment. Judges Sharon Prost, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham questioned the government's defense of the Court of International Trade's decision to deny Meyer first sale valuation seemingly based on an adverse inference drawn against the company for its failure to submit its parent company's financial information (Meyer Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1570).
Southwest Airlines argued at the Court of International Trade that the U.S. violated the rules of statutory interpretation when it claimed that the airline isn't entitled to keep Customs Passenger Processing Fees paid by its customers on canceled tickets. Southwest said it "harmonizes" all the sections of the governing statute, 19 U.S.C. Section 58c, while the U.S. reads the law's collection provision in a way that isolates it from the rest of the statute (Southwest Airlines v. U.S, CIT # 22-00141).
The U.S. again argued that Byungmin Chae's case at the Court of International Trade challenging one question on his customs broker license exam should be dismissed under the doctrine of res judicata, which calls for the dismissal of cases already settled by the court. The Nebraska resident filed suit after his previous case, which he took all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, saw him fall just one question shy of a passing grade on the April 2018 exam (see 2401230031) (Byungmin Chae v. U.S., CIT # 24-00086).
The Court of International Trade ordered that a status conference be held in a case seeking an import ban on fish from New Zealand's West Coast North Island inshore trawl and set net fisheries under the Marine Mammal Protection Act after the plaintiffs filed a stipulation of dismissal (Sea Shepherd New Zealand v. U.S., CIT # 20-00112).
An importer of airplane parts brought a complaint to the Court of International Trade on Aug. 31, saying that an aeronautical control box produced in Illinois and imported to Japan should have been classified as an American good, not a Japanese one (Aeronautical Systems, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 20-00157).
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 3 granted Seko Customs Brokerage's bid to voluntarily dismiss its case against CBP's temporary suspension of the brokerage from the Entry Type 86 pilot and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs at the Court of International Trade. Counsel for Seko didn't immediately respond to a request for comment (Seko Customs Brokerage v. United States, CIT # 24-00097).
German paper exporter Koehler asked the Court of International Trade on Aug. 30 to certify for immediate appeal its decision allowing service on the company via its U.S. counsel. Koehler said the issue of service in the case is "appropriate for prompt review" by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit since the issue is a novel one for both CIT and CAFC and "entirely separate from the underlying merits of the case" (United States v. Koehler Oberkirch, CIT # 24-00014).
Importer Precision Components filed a reply brief on Aug. 30 at the Court of International Trade in an antidumping scope case, telling the court that the Commerce Department characterized a "raw material as a component and thus impermissibly brought" the materials within the scope of the AD order on tapered roller bearings from China. The record clearly says "the materials at issue are not bearing components or parts of bearings and could not be used in the production of bearings absent significant physical processes performed on the raw materials" (Precision Components v. United States, CIT # 23-00218).