The U.S. opposed Canadian lumber exporters' bid to get the court to clarify its instruction to CBP to "discontinue ... the collection of" cash deposits made on entries brought in before a prior Court of International Trade decision, which said it wasn't equitable to subject the companies' exports to the countervailing duty order on Canadian softwood lumber (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations v. United States, CIT # 19-00122).
Court of International Trade activity
Glycine producer Deer Park Glycine said Dec. 3 that the Court of International Trade does have jurisdiction under section 1581(c), or alternatively 1581(i), to hear its challenge of the Commerce Department’s rejection of Deer Park’s “duplicative” scope ruling request (Deer Park Glycine v. U.S., CIT # 24-00016).
Court-ordered reliquidations aren't actions taken by CBP and can't be protested, the government said in oral arguments held Dec. 6 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. As a result, the Federal Circuit doesn't have jurisdiction to hear Target's appeal of a liquidation ordered by CIT, the U.S. said (Target v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2274).
Importer Incase Design Corp. settled four customs cases on its iPad or tablet covers, securing a 5.3% duty rate for the goods, which were originally assessed at 17.6%. Filing four stipulated judgments at the Court of International Trade, Incase said the U.S. agreed to liquidate the covers under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 3926.90.99 after originally liquidating the goods under subheading 4202.92.90. The importer will receive refunds for excess duties paid on its goods (Incase Design Corp. v. U.S., CIT #'s 14-00102, 14-00299, 15-00144, 16-00026).
Importer AM/NS Calvert and the U.S. settled the company's case challenging the rejection of its 12 requests for Section 232 steel tariff exclusions, the parties told the Court of International Trade on Dec. 4. Under the settlement, CBP will refund duties paid on 20 entries of the company's steel slab imports, and the company will abandon its claim for refunds on another 16 of its slab entries. The settlement came as the result of court-led mediation before Judge Leo Gordon. The parties said they reached an agreement in principle to settle the case in February, pending a review of Calvert's import data (see 2404120043) (AM/NS Calvert v. U.S., CIT # 21-00005).
An importer of dried seaweed brought a complaint Dec. 4 to the Court of International Trade challenging the reclassification of its seaweed “for the first time in 37 years” (Takaokaya USA v. United States, CIT # 24-00213).
A 2012 analysis memorandum from a prior antidumping duty determination should be put on the record of a suit on an anti-circumvention proceeding, the Court of International Trade held on Dec. 5. Granting the government's motion to complete the administrative record, Judge Stephen Vaden dubbed the spat "pedantic" and said the record "should be supplemented."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 4 granted importer Incase Design Corp.'s voluntarily dismissal of its suit on the classification of its iPad and iPhone cases. Incase brought the suit in 2016 to contest CBP's classification of the goods under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings 3926.10.00, dutiable at 5.3%, and 3926.90.99, dutiable at 5.3%. The company said the goods should have been classified under subheading 4820.30.00, free of duty, or subheading 8473.30.51, free of duty (Incase Design Corp. v. United States, CIT # 16-00181).
Mexican tomato exporter NS Brands said Dec. 3 that the Commerce Department needed to consider the “prejudice to companies now in existence” that resulted from resuming an antidumping duty investigation from 1996 with the same respondents (Bioparques de Occidente v. United States, CIT Consol. # 19-00204).