Ting-Ting Kao, an international trade attorney at White & Case, will be leaving the firm June 17, she said in a filing at the Court of International Trade. Kao has worked at the firm since 2008, where she started as an associate, then as counsel from 2020. Kao worked on classification, country of origin and multilateral trade agreements matters, among other things, the firm said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
FORT LAUDERDALE -- A recent update to internal CBP guidance on prior disclosures significantly shortens the time frame importers and brokers have to gather information on potential violations by making it more difficult to request extensions for more time to perfect the disclosure, customs lawyer Jennifer Diaz of Diaz Trade Law said during a recent panel discussion.
The Court of International Trade in a June 15 opinion upheld the Commerce Department's final determination in the 2019 antidumping duty investigation on wood mouldings and millwork products from Brazil. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled that Commerce properly combined the three mandatory respondents -- Araupel, Braslumber Industria de Molduras and BrasPine Madeiras -- into a single entity and correctly didn't apply the major input rule to certain log purchases. Commerce was also right to revise Araupel's general and administrative expenses to account for fair value adjustments associated with the annual revaluation of standing trees in the company's unharvested forests, the court said. The result is a zero percent dumping margin for the collapsed entity.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
CBP no longer believes importers Global Aluminum Distributor and Hialeah Aluminum Supply evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China by transshipping them through Dominican manufacturer Kingtom Aluminio. Filing its remand results at the Court of International Trade in a case related to the Enforce and Protect Act investigation, CBP said that after taking another look at the record, it cannot conclude that evasion took place (Global Aluminum Distributor v. United States, CIT #21-00198).
FORT LAUDERDALE -- Delays drawback filers are seeing in claims processing are related to a variety of factors, including a reorganization of CBP’s drawback staff and understaffing at certain key drawback centers, but importers can follow certain best practices to speed the process along, CBP officials and drawback experts said during a panel discussion June 15.
The Court of International Trade should rule in favor of importer Second Nature in its case challenging CBP classification of its imported dried botanicals, the importer said in a June 14 brief (Second Nature Designs Ltd. v. United States, CIT #17-00271). The importer asked the court for a summary judgment classifying all subject merchandise under subheading 0604.90.30 as dried or bleached, regardless of a subsequent dying and painting process, and reliquidating the entries duty-free.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in a case over whether Japanese manufacturer Sigma Corporation, along with other companies, is guilty of violating the False Claims Act for not paying antidumping duties. The two trade groups argued that businesses that act consistently with a reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous regulation lack the "requisite False Claims Act scienter" and that the district court should have said there was no obligation to pay the duties given that the duties are not owed on the imports at issue (Island Industries, et al. v. Sigma Corporation, 9th Cir. # 22-55063).
Plaintiffs in an antidumping case failed to exhaust their administrative remedies when challenging the Commerce Department's decision to issue a questionnaire in lieu of on-site verification due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, the Court of International Trade ruled in a June 14 opinion. Judge Stephen Vaden said that the AD petitioner, Ellwood City Forge Co., had "multiple opportunities" to counter the verification methodology, but failed to do so administratively.