The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Texas-based syringe importer Retractable Technologies took to the Court of International Trade to contest the 100% increase of Section 301 tariffs recently imposed on needles and syringes from China. The complaint is seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against the duties, claiming that the tariffs could send the company out of business (Retractable Technologies v. United States, CIT # 24-00185).
Luggage importer Samsonite filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on Aug. 29 to contest CBP's alleged failure to apply Section 301 exclusions granted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to its baggage entries (Samsonite v. United States, CIT # 24-00031).
An importer filed Aug. 21 its long-delayed motion for judgment in its test case alleging its Chinese-origin selective catalytic reduction catalysts had wrongly been assessed Section 301 duties. The catalysts were misclassified by CBP as centrifuges instead of “reaction initiators, reaction accelerators and catalytic preparations, not elsewhere specified or included,” it said (Mitsubishi Power Americas v. U.S., CIT #21-00573).
Plaintiffs in the massive Section 301 litigation said the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which overturned the Chevron principle of deferring to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes (see 2406280051), is relevant to the consequential litigation concerning the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 duties (HMTX Industries v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
The Court of International Trade on July 10 kept the vast majority of the confidential record shielded from the public in Chinese printer cartridge exporter Ninestar Corp.'s suit against its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List. Judge Gary Katzmann only ordered an eight-page stretch of the confidential record unsealed, given that it detailed the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's "standard operating procedures."
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 17-27 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):
Importer MTD Products filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade June 5 claiming its spark-ignition reciprocating or rotary internal combustion piston engines from China were improperly denied Section 301 exclusions by CBP (MTD Products v. U.S., CIT # 22-00174).
In a 2022 case brought against both CBP and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, plaintiff Curia Global Inc., a drug development company, once again amended its complaint to remove one of its family companies, Curia Wisconsin, because “the entity is in the process of changing ownership and no longer wishes to join in this action" (Curia Global Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00247).
The Chevron doctrine will almost certainly be overturned soon by the Supreme Court, leaving the path forward for judicial deference unclear, panelists said at Georgetown University Law Center’s 45th Annual International Trade Update.