The complaint from Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) alleging TikTok is violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by duping Arkansas citizens about the risks of using TikTok is “a run-of-the-mill state-court case,” said Griffin’s brief Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-01038) in U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas in El Dorado in support of his motion to remand. Griffin wants the case returned to Union County Circuit Court where it originated March 28 before TikTok removed it to federal court May 9 (see 2305100036). TikTok argues the case belongs in federal court “because TikTok’s conduct also implicates foreign policy and national-security issues that the federal government might address,” said the brief. “In other words, TikTok argues that the sheer scope of the problems it has created enables it to choose its preferred forum,” it said. The argument is “meritless," as another federal court “recently recognized in the exact same posture,” it said. Indiana also sued TikTok for violating that state’s consumer-protection law, it said. “As in this case, Indiana alleges that TikTok collects users’ personal information without telling them that this information might be shared with China,” it said. “As in this case, TikTok removed to federal court on the theory that the state’s state-law claim arose under federal law,” creating federal-question jurisdiction under Title 28's Section 1331, it said. The court rejected that theory and remanded to state court, noting TikTok failed to point to any question of federal law that would need to be decided, it said. “That analysis necessarily applies here, where TikTok filed functionally the same Notice of Removal as it filed there,” said the brief. Federal-question jurisdiction “requires a question of federal law, “and no such question can be found” in the Arkansas complaint, it said. Whether TikTok is liable under Arkansas law for deceiving Arkansas consumers doesn’t depend “on the construction of any federal statute or other source of federal law,” it said. “Nor is it one of the limited subjects that arise under federal common law,” which the complaint doesn’t invoke, it said: “This case is a pure matter of state law and should be remanded to the state court where it was filed.”

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Court of International Trade correctly dismissed appellant Glob Energy's claims for lack of jurisdiction in an Enforce and Protect Act case in which CBP said the company and others were transshipping Chinese xanthan gum through India to avoid antidumping duties, the U.S. said in a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. CBP liquidated Glob's entries and the company did not appeal the liquidations "through channels that would permit the trial court to exercise jurisdiction over those entries," and as a result, the liquidations become final and unreviewable, the brief said (All One God Faith v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1078).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should deny Oman Fasteners' bid to dismiss Mid Continent's appeal of a Court of International Trade opinion which consolidated a motion for an injunction on antidumping duty cash deposits with a motion for judgment, saying the motion to dismiss is a “revisionist version of the record and applicable statutes, regulations, and judicial precedent” and isn't accurate, Mid Continent said in a reply brief June 6 (Oman Fasteners v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1661).

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Attorney Jon Yormick took 29 cases with him when he moved from Flannery Georgalis to create his own firm, Yormick Law LLC, his office confirmed with Trade Law Daily. Yormick began the process of filing notices of attorney substitutions in the cases, all of which are attached to the massive Section 301 litigation. The 29 cases involve 36 total companies that migrated with Yormick. The firm was founded on Jan. 1 as a relaunch of Yormick's small firm practice, last referred to as Law Offices of Jon P. Yormick Co., which existed from 1995-2019.

The International Trade Commission ended a Section 337 investigation on imported electronics and semiconductors (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1340), according to a Federal Register notice. The Commission declined to review the administrative law judge's May 9 determination that terminated the investigation after Bell Semiconductor withdrew its complaint.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should disregard the government's procedural arguments in a case on whether Vandewater International's steel branch outlets fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on butt-weld pipe fittings from China, importer Smith-Cooper International (SCI) argued in a reply brief (Vandewater International v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1093).