The U.S. brought a customs penalty suit against importer E-Dong U.S.A. for failure to pay federal excise tax on entries of soju bottles from South Korea. Filing a complaint March 28 at the Court of International Trade, the government said that the company entered the soju, a Korean spirit, via "material or false statement" by failing to reference any of the owed excise tax (U.S. v. E-Dong, U.S.A., CIT # 24-00066).
The Commerce Department last week issued new antidumping and countervailing duty regulations, which, most notably, lifted the prohibition on the consideration of transnational subsidies in CVD cases (see 2403210070).
The International Trade Commission is proposing to permanently adopt its COVID-19 era regulation that waived the need for paper filings of confidential and public documents in safeguard, antidumping and countervailing duty, and Section 337 proceedings. In a proposed rule released March 28, the ITC, at the request of the ITC Trial Lawyers Association and the Customs and International Trade Bar Association, proposed eliminating the requirement for paper copy submissions, except for complaints and complaint supplements and amendments in Section 337 cases. The regulation also removes "gender-specific language" found in the ITC's rules.
China opened a case at the World Trade Organization against the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act's rules for electric vehicle subsidies and "other measures," the nation's Ministry of Commerce announced March 26, according to an unofficial translation.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 18-24:
The Commerce Department released the final version of regulations on March 22 that will make various key changes in the administration of antidumping and countervailing duty regulations. The changes take effect April 24.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 11-17:
Mosaic tile importer Akua Mosaics and its president, Kenneth Fleming, pleaded guilty on March 19 to conspiring to smuggle Chinese-made porcelain mosaic tiles into the U.S., the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Puerto Rico announced.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed a lawsuit from clothing company Smart Apparel (U.S.) that accused Nordstrom of breaching a contract when it canceled orders from Smart Apparel that were suspected of being made with forced labor (Smart Apparel (U.S.) v. Nordstrom, W.D. Wash. # 23-01754).
The Court of International Trade on March 18 said that the U.S. waited too long to send surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. a bill for an unpaid customs bond on Chinese garlic imports that entered in 2004. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the government's eight-year delay in demanding the payment from Aegis "was unreasonable and a breach of contract." The court said the delay broke the "reasonable time requirement" -- an "implied contractual term."