Of the roughly 3,700 complaints filed since Sept. 10 at the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking to have the Section 301 Lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings vacated and the duties refunded (see 2009110041), about 140 have come since Sept. 24. That’s the two-year anniversary of List 3 taking effect and was within the statute of limitations that many lawyers cited under court rules to establish the timeliness of their actions. A plaintiff must file an action within two years "after the cause of action accrues," say court rules. Lawyers in the subsequent actions will try to establish that the clock started when their importer clients first paid the tariffs. Recent complaints have been trickling in at the rate of about one a day, the latest (in Pacer) on Monday from LG Chem and four other importers from various industries. LG is trying to defeat the List 4A tariffs on the lithium-ion batteries it imports from China under the 8507.60.00 subheading. Akin Gump is handling the case for LG and argues the List 4A statute of limitations doesn’t expire until Aug. 20, two years after List 4A was announced in the Federal Register. Akin Gump was behind the first-filed complaint on behalf of HMTX Industries and Jasco Products.
Complaint filings at the Court of International Trade seeking to have the Section 301 lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings vacated and the duties refunded (see 2009210025) slowed to a trickle in November, with fewer than 10 filed within the last two weeks. Of the roughly 3,700 complaints filed since Sept. 10, about 140 have been filed since Sept. 24. That’s the two-year anniversary date of List 3 taking effect and was within the statute of limitations that many lawyers cited under court rules to establish the timeliness of their actions. A plaintiff must file an action within two years “after the cause of action accrues,” court rules say. Lawyers in the subsequent actions will try to establish that the clock started when their importer clients first paid the tariffs.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 18 weighed in on the meaning of “not minced” and “packed in oil” for seafood preparations in the tariff schedule, finding tuna salad pouches imported by StarKist are both, and must be entered under a high 35% duty rate.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 9-15:
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 dismissed an importer’s challenge to the antidumping duty rate it was assessed following completion of an administrative review that covered its Chinese exporter. Intercontinental Chemicals (ICC) should have participated in the administrative review if it wanted to challenge its exporter’s oversight that led to the assessments at a rate of 154.07%, rather than the zero rate the exporter was assigned in the review, CIT said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 2-8:
CBP has been swamped with hundreds of thousands of protests related to Section 301 litigation on lists 3 and 4A China tariffs, as importers seek to preserve their rights to refunds if the lawsuits are successful, Robert Silverman of Grunfeld Desiderio said Nov. 9. Negotiations are ongoing with the Department of Justice to untether claims from liquidation dates, which would free importers from potentially having to file the protests to protect their rights, Silverman said, speaking at the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade’s virtual Northeast Cargo Symposium. “We’re trying to get DOJ to agree that liquidation is irrelevant. If they do, then we can stop filing these silly protests,” he said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 26 - Nov. 1:
The government must go beyond merely asserting intentional misclassification even when dealing with a nonresponsive defendant, Court of International Trade Judge Mark Barnett said in an Oct. 30 ruling. The Department of Justice requested a default judgment in a case against NYWL Enterprises. DOJ alleged that the company purposefully and misclassified 107 entries of Siamese coaxial cable, and sought “a penalty in the amount of $3,760,070.00 (equal to eight times the total lost revenue) plus interest" for fraud.
The agency responsible for U.S. financial sanctions lost a record number of employees last year, a trend former officials and industry lawyers say has led to longer processing times and an influx of new officials.