The Court of International Trade should not have dismissed a case involving Commerce's cash deposit instructions to CBP after the 2019 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on softwood lumber products from Canada for lack of jurisdiction, J.D. Irving said in its May 22 brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (J.D. Irving Ltd. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 2023-1652).
Any plaintiff in the massive Section 301 litigation looking to dismiss their case must comply with the court's rules to file a stipulation of dismissal signed by all parties who have appeared in the case, the Court of International Trade said in a text-only order. The court clarified that this rule, USCIT Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), applies in the present action since the U.S. filed a Master Answer in the overarching test case, meaning the answer is considered to be filed in each Section 301 case "now pending or hereafter filed" in the court. Certain companies have begun dismissing their challenges to the China tariffs following the trade court's ruling that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not violate the law when implementing them (see 2303170063) (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT # 21-00052).
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The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Ocean Shipping Reform Implementation Act, a follow-up bill to OSRA from original co-sponsors Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., and Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., passed 58-1 out of the House Transportation Committee May 23.
The Court of International Trade granted importer DSM Food Specialties USA's voluntary bid to dismiss its case challenging the classification of its CaroCare beta-carotene in 30% oil suspension form. The company filed suit in 2005 to argue that the imports should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 2936.90.000, free of duty, rather than subheading 2106.90.9998, dutiable at 6.4% (DSM Food Specialties USA v. United States, CIT # 05-00043).
Five affiliated Manhattan telemarketing entities agreed to pay Pennsylvania $250,000 to settle allegations they inundated Pennsylvanians with hundreds of thousands of unwanted robocalls (see 2211030056), said a consent petition for final decree filed Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-01551) in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Ranjan signed an order Thursday approving the petition and closing the case.
The Court of International Trade should dismiss a government counterclaim of unpaid duties in a classification case on dried botanicals imported by Second Nature Designs because DOJ pointed to no authority that gave it a cause of action to assert a claim to collect duties in excess of those assessed during final liquidation, Second Nature said in a May 17 brief in support of its motion to dismiss the counterclaim (Second Nature Designs v. U.S., CIT # 18-00131).
The U.S.'s customs penalty suit against importer Wanxiang America Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese manufacturing company, is a "money grab, plain and simple," Michael Roll, counsel for WXA, said during oral argument at the Court of International Trade on May 17. Roll said that because the U.S. is only seeking a penalty for WXA's entries from a company with a 92.84% dumping rate and not entries made before or after the ones at issue from a company with a zero percent rate, it is clear the government is trying to "grab the money" (United States v. Wanxiang America Corp., CIT # 22-00205).
A series of export control indictments announced this week, including several for illegal shipments to China and Russia, only scratched the surface of prosecutions expected to be brought as part of the new Disruptive Technology Strike Force, said Matthew Axelrod, the Bureau of Industry and Security's top export enforcement official. “It’s just the beginning,” Axelrod said during a May 17 law conference hosted by the American Bar Association, Mayer Brown and American University. “I think you can expect to continue to see actions come out from the strike force as this work continues.”