The Justice Department plans to announce more indictments involving cases of Chinese technology theft before the Joe Biden administration takes over in January, top U.S. security officials said. Under the agency’s China initiative (see 2008130036), the U.S. has targeted and arrested Chinese nationals for trying to steal export-controlled technology, an effort that has resulted in more than 1,000 Chinese researchers leaving the country since July, said John Demers, the U.S. assistant attorney general for national security.
Lawyers for importers that have filed suit under the extensive ongoing Section 301 litigation have established an “informal” steering committee to manage the case, law firm Neville Peterson said in a Dec. 1 blog post, adding that the committee “confers with some regularity.” Most observers expect the U.S. Court of International Trade will pick the first-filed Section 301 complaint from HMTX Industries and Jasco Production as the lead case, and stay the roughly 3,700 other actions while HMTX is litigated, the law firm said.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 1 sent an Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) evasion determination back down to CBP for reconsideration, finding the agency failed to properly disclose information to the accused that it relied on to find the importer guilty of evasion. CBP’s regulations require the agency to make available public summaries of any redacted or business confidential information on the record of an EAPA investigation, but CBP did not do so during a proceeding involving Royal Brush Manufacturing, a pencil importer alleged to have transshipped Chinese pencils through the Philippines to avoid antidumping duties, CIT said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 23-29:
The lawyer who filed dozens of Section 301 complaints on a single day at the U.S. Court of International Trade (see 2011200023) said his spate of filings had more to do with the constraints of working remotely during the pandemic than any rush to meet the court’s filing deadlines. Attorney Elon Pollack of Stein Shostak in Los Angeles filed most of the new cases on behalf of importers with List 4A tariff exposure, leaving List 3 claims out of his complaints. He designated Aug. 20, 2019, when the List 4A notice was published in the Federal Register, as the date the court’s two-year statute of limitations clock began ticking. He said he believes the two-year statute of limitations runs from the date an importer actually paid the tariffs, not when the duties were announced. All Pollack’s complaints, like the roughly 3,700 others filed since Sept. 10, allege that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its 1974 Trade Act authority by imposing retaliatory tariffs against the Chinese and that the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act by running sloppy rulemakings that lacked transparency. The Section 301 litigation seeks to get the rulemakings vacated and the tariffs refunded. Pollack said his cases will be included under whatever test case and procedures the court designates for the Section 301 litigation. His filings list the first-filed suit by HTMX in the Section 301 litigation as a related case.
The U.S. Court of International Trade granted Akin Gump’s motion to amend the summons in its first-filed Section 301 complaint to include Jasco Products as the suit’s newest plaintiff (see 2011240030). Though the CIT has assigned no judges to this case or the roughly 3,700 complaints that followed, Tuesday’s order (in Pacer), the first issued by the court in the 3-month-old docket, was signed by Judge Lee Gordon. All the complaints allege that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its 1974 Trade Act authority by imposing Lists 3 and 4A tariffs as retaliatory against the Chinese and that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act by running sloppy rulemakings that lacked transparency. All seek to get the Lists 3 and 4A rulemakings vacated and the tariffs refunded.
The U.S. Court of International Trade granted Akin Gump’s motion to amend the summons in its first-filed Section 301 complaint to include Jasco Products as the suit’s newest plaintiff (see 2011240030). Though the CIT has assigned no judges to this case or the roughly 3,700 complaints that followed, Tuesday’s order (in Pacer), the first issued by the court in the 3-month-old docket, was signed by Judge Lee Gordon. All the complaints allege that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its 1974 Trade Act authority by imposing Lists 3 and 4A tariffs as retaliatory against the Chinese and that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act by running sloppy rulemakings that lacked transparency. All seek to get the Lists 3 and 4A rulemakings vacated and the tariffs refunded.
Just as the recent flood of Section 301 litigation had appeared to slow to a trickle, importers added more than two dozen more lawsuits last week to the multitude of cases currently before the Court of International Trade. But while the new complaints restate the same arguments made by thousands of other plaintiffs in the sprawling litigation, many of the new cases differ in that they seek to invalidate only List 4 tariffs, excluding List 3 from the requests.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 16-22:
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Nov. 16-20 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.