CBP and One World Technologies have agreed to settle a lawsuit on the agency’s seizures of the company’s imported garage door openers, the Court of international Trade said as it dismissed the case May 9. The settlement comes after an International Trade Commission administrative law judge recommended the ITC find the redesigned garage door openers aren’t covered by a Section 337 limited exclusion order issued in March 2018 (see 1803280024).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 8 affirmed a lower court’s denial of an injunction to an importer challenging the effective date of an antidumping duty increase. Sumec, an importer of solar cells, sought an order barring liquidation of its entries after a Court of International Trade decision that raised the rate of its exporter, but before notice of that increase was published in the Federal Register. CAFC, like CIT, held the order unnecessary because an injunction covering those entries has already been issued in another case and, even without an injunction, the government admits the entries should be liquidated if the importer wins the case.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of April 29 - May 5:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of April 22-28:
The court trustee for liquidated tech products supplier Wynit Distribution is going after CTA to recover $33,000 the association collected from the company a month before it filed for bankruptcy. She alleges the payment qualifies as an improper “preference” action. Wynit paid CTA the money it owed in August 2017 from a Wells Fargo account, said trustee Nauni Manty in an “adversary proceeding” complaint (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Minneapolis. Wynit sought chapter 11 protection the following month, and the case was converted to a chapter 7 liquidation in January 2018, it said. It isn't clear what goods or services CTA as a trade association would have provided and for what purposes to product distributor Wynit, whose still-active website (its phones are disconnected) lists dozens of “recognizable top brands” it once supplied to independent retailers. A CTA spokesperson declined comment Friday. The $33,000 debt Wynit owed CTA was minuscule compared with the claims of top creditors listed in the bankruptcy (in Pacer). It shows Wynit owed Fitbit $31.5 million when the petition was filed 19 months ago. Others in the top 20: Symantec (owed $9.3 million); Canon USA ($6.4 million); McAfee ($3.5 million); Western Digital ($2.3 million); and Amazon Fulfillment Services ($1.7 million).
The court trustee for liquidated supplier Wynit Distribution is going after CTA to recover a $33,000 debt the association collected from the company a month before it went bankrupt. She alleges the payment qualifies as an improper “preference” action under Section 547 of the federal bankruptcy code and should be voided.
The court trustee for liquidated supplier Wynit Distribution is going after CTA to recover a $33,000 debt the association collected from the company a month before it went bankrupt. She alleges the payment qualifies as an improper “preference” action under Section 547 of the federal bankruptcy code and should be voided.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of April 15-21:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 15-19 in case they were missed.
The National Association of Manufacturers lawsuit against CBP and the Department of the Treasury over limits to drawback for goods subject to excise taxes seems to have a "good likelihood of success," law firm Neville Peterson said in an April 19 blog post. Specifically, NAM has a good argument that CBP's change for excise tax drawback "conflicts directly with the language of Section 313 of the Tariff Act, as amended by the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA)," the law firm said. "On this point, NAM would seem to have a clear path to victory." That's because "Treasury’s proposal to limit [federal excise taxes (FET)] was first proposed as a change of practice in 2007, when the prior version of the drawback statute was in effect, and withdrawn in 2009," Neville Peterson said. "As amended by TFTEA, however, the drawback statute clearly forecloses the government’s position, since it indicates that the amount of FET drawback to be paid is that which 'would have been charged had the exported merchandise been imported.'”