New York resident Shuangyang Li filed a stipulation of dismissal in his case challenging several questions on his customs broker license exam. Li argued that many of the questions were unfairly ambiguous, conflicting or lacking essential information, leading to his failure to pass (see 2411220049). Li received a 73.75% score on the exam, just shy of the 75% passing grade. Li didn't respond to a request for comment on the reason for the dismissal or nature of the stipulation (Shuangyang Li v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CIT # 24-00205).
Responding to a Court of International Trade request to discuss “the statutory scheme of who is eligible to apply for a separate rate,” wood moldings and millwork products exporters China Cornici and RaoPing said applicants shouldn’t need a suspended entry during the relevant review period (China Cornici Co. Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #s 23-000216, -00217).
Importer Honeywell pushed back April 4 against a U.S. motion for rehearing after the Court of International Trade sided with it to find its precut radial, chordial and web fabric pieces, used in airplane brakes, were “parts of an aircraft” rather than “fabrics” (see 2501300051). The trade court hadn't misapplied the Harmonized Tariff Schedule's General Rules of Interpretation, it said (Honeywell International Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 17-00256).
The International Trade Commission filed a petition for writ of mandamus at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit following a recent Court of International Trade decision finding the commission's practice of automatically redacting questionnaire responses to be unlawful (see 2503270057) (In re United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-127).
The Court of International Trade's Pacer.gov system will undergo maintenance April 27 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. EDT, the court said. Users may have "intermittent issues" when logging onto CM/ECF and making payments through Pay.gov, the court said.
Importer Amcor Flexibles Singen GmbH filed a stipulated judgment at the Court of International Trade in its customs suit on the classification of its aluminum foil entries. The judgment said the goods are to be classified under duty-free Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 7607.20.50, which covers other backed aluminum foil. CBP initially classified the goods under subheading 3921.90.40, which covers flexible products with textile components in which man-made fibers predominate by weight over any other single textile fiber. The product at issue is "20-micron aluminum foil, soft-temper, plain, bright side lacquer laminated to a 12-micron PET film" (Amcor Flexibles Singen GmbH v. United States, CIT # 16-00200).
Importer Scioto Valley Woodworking opposed April 2 a Commerce Department finding on remand (see 2501310016) that it had evaded antidumping and countervailing duties (American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance v. United States, CIT # 23-00140).
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of paper importer Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified, on April 3 challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose 20% tariffs on all goods from China. Filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Simplified laid out three constitutional and statutory claims against the use of IEEPA to impose tariffs and one claim that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act for unlawfully modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).
The U.S. pushed back April 2 against a petitioner’s motion -- with a defendant-intervenor exporter’s consent -- to stay a challenge to the countervailing duty order review of Indian-origin pneumatic off-the-road tires (Titan Tire Corp. v. United States, CIT # 24-00207).
The Court of International Trade sent back the Commerce Department's use of UN Comtrade data in the benchmark price for plywood and the use of adverse facts available to find that certain input suppliers are government "authorities" in both the 2019 and 2020 reviews of the countervailing duty order on multilayered wood flooring from China. Issuing a pair of decisions on the reviews on April 3, Judge Timothy Reif said that while Commerce permissibly found that the Chinese government failed to submit adequate information regarding the input suppliers, the agency ultimately didn't give the foreign government proper notice or opportunity to remedy its deficiencies.