The World Trade Organization's nearly unanimous rejection of antidumping duties and safeguard duties has hurt the ability of countries to use AD/CV duties and safeguard tariffs, according to Jennifer Hillman, a former member of the WTO appellate body and now Georgetown University law professor. "Well over 50 percent of all WTO disputes have been in trade remedies," Hillman said during a Washington International Trade Association panel on April 13 about the WTO.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of April 2-8:
An importer accused of trademark infringement will get a reprieve from additional customs bonds it says will put it out of business, after the Court of International Trade on April 6 issued a temporary restraining order narrowing the scope of CBP’s enhanced bonding requirements. The court told CBP to begin processing shipments from U.S. Auto Parts not implicated in the purported trademark infringement, and to restrict its demands for single transaction bonds only to allegedly counterfeit merchandise. The order expires April 20.
The Court of International Trade on April 5 rejected a bid to stop Section 232 tariffs on steel products, finding the recently announced 25 percent tariff may be imposed for economic reasons in addition to national security. The court denied Severstal’s motion for a preliminary injunction barring imposition of the tariffs on the importer, and will now proceed to hear arguments over whether it should dismiss the case entirely.
Importer Sues CBP Over Bond Requirements on Car Replacement Parts for Alleged Trademark Infringement
U.S. Auto Parts seeks a court order barring CBP from imposing “baseless and excessive” single entry bond requirements on its shipments for purported intellectual property rights violations, it said in a complaint filed April 2. CBP Norfolk is requiring a bond of three times entered value on all of the importer’s entries due to concerns that U.S. Auto Parts is importing aftermarket replacement auto grilles that infringe trademarks held by the car manufacturers. But the allegedly infringing parts only make up a small portion of its overall imports, and in any case should not be considered counterfeit, U.S. Auto Parts said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 26 - April 1:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 26-30 in case they were missed.
Instructions not to assess antidumping duties on “unliquidated” entries also apply to entries that have been liquidated but not finalized because they are still protestable, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a March 30 decision. Overturning a Court of International Trade ruling from 2016 (see 1610250042), the Federal Circuit held that the Commerce Department’s revocation of antidumping duties on German steel may apply to several of ThyssenKrupp’s entries that had already been liquidated by the time the revocation was announced.
The Court of International Trade will hear arguments March 29 on whether it should issue a temporary block of recently imposed Section 232 steel tariffs as they apply to a Miami-based importer. Severstal Export Miami, a subsidiary of the Russian steel manufacturer PAO Severstal, argues that the tariffs are unconstitutional because they weren’t actually meant to address national security -- a fact purportedly belied by President Donald Trump’s own tweets -- and unenforceable for failure to provide fair notice to companies with shipments already on the water.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 19-25: