Beverly Hills watchmaker Ildico filed two separate complaints with the Court of International Trade on April 28, arguing its imported wristwatches within gold bezels and cases and synthetic sapphires on front and back should be classifiable as wrist watches with precious metal cases of heading 9101, rather than as CBP liquidated them under subheading 9102 as other wrist watches (Ildico Inc. v. U.S., #18-00076, -00136)

The Court of International Trade in an April 28 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's move to drop Section 232 duties from antidumping duty review respondent Power Steel's U.S. price for two entries of steel concrete rebar. The result is a de minimis dumping rate for Power Steel. In the one-page order, Judge Jane Restani said that as no party intends to submit further filings, the remand is sustained.

Importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, didn't need to file a protest to establish jurisdiction to challenge the liquidation of its entries since there was nothing to protest within 180 days of liquidation, SIS said in an April 29 reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. DOJ continues to "improperly oversimplify the analysis" by repeating the "mantra" that the importer was required to file a protest to contest the liquidation of the entries, SIS argued, seeking remand to the Court of International Trade (Acquisition 362, LLC dba Strategic Import Supply v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #22-1161).

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

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

Importer DSM Nutritional Products moved on April 27 to designate a test case in its tariff classification challenge on beta-carotene products, in a bid to place six other cases under one other action at the Court of International Trade. Five of the other cases were brought by DSM (see 2110270052) and one other by American International Chemical (DSM Nutritional Products v. United States, CIT #17-00136).

Counsel for Jennifer Lam-Quang-Vinh, a customs broker and former senior manager of Global Trade and Customs at Springs Window Fashions, a producer and seller of window coverings, pushed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to set up a jury trial over whether she was unlawfully fired. During an April 27 oral argument, counsel for Lam continued to make the case that she was illegally let go from her job for expressing her view that the company's window shades imports should be assessed Section 301 China tariffs and that a jury should look at the case (Jennifer Lam-Quang-Vinh v. Springs Window Fashions, W.D. Wis. #21-2665).

The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping case, establishing a de minimis dumping margin for exporter Power Steel Co. As no party submitted any further filings over the remand results, Judge Jane Restani affirmed the remand in a one-page judgment. On remand, Commerce found that Power Steel didn't pay Section 232 duties on two entries of steel concrete rebar, dropping the duties from the company's sales prices when establishing its base export price.

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

A good faith disagreement over the scope of antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders cannot be construed as a "material and false statement," needed to find evasion under the Enforce and Protect Act, importers Ikadan System USA and Weihai Gaosai Metal Product Co. argued in an April 26 brief at the Court of International Trade. As such, CBP's evasion finding is illegal, as it fails to make a proper finding of evasion, the brief said (Ikadan System USA v. United States, CIT #21-00592).