The U.S. Department of the Interior unreasonably delayed responding to a 2014 request to certify Mexico under the Pelly Amendments to the Fishermen's Protective Act of 1967 due to Mexico's failure to stop illegal fishing of and trade in endangered totoaba, an "imperiled fish," the Center for Biological Diversity, Animal Welfare Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council argued. In a suit filed Dec. 14 at the Court of International Trade, the conservation groups said the department and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to respond to the petition, and said the killing of the totoaba is aiding in the "imminent extinction of the vaquita porpoise" (Center for Biological Diversity v. Deb Haaland, CIT #22-00339).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade should dismiss a Section 592 penalty case against defendant Zhe "John" Liu since the statute of limitations has run out and the "action is untimely," Liu said in a Dec. 13 motion. The fraud case brought by the U.S. was not brought within five years from the date of the alleged violation because the defendant was not involved in the transaction at issue, as he was neither an owner, officer or director of GL Paper Distribution -- the company that committed the alleged fraud and a co-defendant in the action, the brief said. Liu also argued that the U.S. failed to state a claim against the defendant. As a result, Liu should be severed and dismissed from the case, the brief said (United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT #22-00215).
Although some observers thought the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's reaction to losing cases filed by Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and China at the World Trade Organization over its steel and aluminum tariffs marked a new era of rejecting the rules-based trading system, others who had served either in the WTO or the U.S. government said there was nothing too surprising about the U.S. reaction to its loss.
The Commerce Department’s recent preliminary determination that Southeast Asian solar cells and panels are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties (see 2212020064) left several questions unanswered, and lawyers for the Solar Energy Industries Association hope the agency will clarify these issues as the case proceeds to its final determinations, they said during a webinar Dec. 13.
The only way importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, could have properly challenged a CBP decision on its entries, according to the Court of International Trade, was to file a "[p]remature, overly broad, or indefinite" protest, SIS argued in a Dec. 6 supplemental brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. But these types of protests "do not constitute a proper basis for invoking CIT jurisdiction," the importer claimed, citing a prior Federal Circuit ruling (Acquisition 362 v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1161).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec.12 opinion dismissed a suit from importer MS Solar Investments challenging the Commerce Department's liquidation instructions following an antidumping duty review for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said the case is based on an error affecting the final results of the review and not a mistake in the liquidation instructions. This means the case falls under Section 1581(c) and not Section 1581(i) -- the court's "residual" jurisidiction -- as claimed by the plaintiff.
The online marketplace Letgo isn’t liable for the murders of a husband and wife who were killed when trying to buy a used car through the platform, the U.S. District Court for Colorado ruled in a Dec. 5 decision (docket 22-cv-00899). Though the court sided with the company in dismissing the case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Hegarty said Letgo isn’t entitled to liability protection under Communications Decency Act Section 230 at this stage.
Although some observers thought the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's reaction to losing cases filed by Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and China at the World Trade Organization over its steel and aluminum tariffs marked a new era of rejecting the rules-based trading system, others who had served either in the WTO or the U.S. government said there was nothing too surprising about the U.S. reaction to its loss.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade: