The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 19-25:
“Control surfaces” used by professionals in the audio industry to record and edit music are not classifiable in the tariff schedule as automatic data processing machines, ruled the Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 (here). The consoles imported by Digidesign have functions other than sending signals or data to a computer, like adjusting signals fed in by microphones. They also “work in conjunction” with the automatic data processing machine, defined in CIT’s ruling as “functioning or operating in a specified manner while joined together for a common purpose.” Meeting both the conditions of a note to chapter 84, the consoles are excluded from classification as automatic data processing machines, and are instead classifiable as “other” electrical machinery, said CIT.
CBP set in motion the first phase of a plan to increase the use of Centers of Excellence and Expertise by shifting some authorities from the port directors to the directors of three CEEs, the agency said Jan. 20 (here). It also laid out some of the specifics involved within the first phase of the accelerated roll out (here), which will initially involve three CEEs -- electronics in Los Angeles, pharmaceuticals in New York, and petroleum and minerals in Houston. This first phase is part of an agency plan to move post-release processing for entire industries to the corresponding CEEs (see 14030613).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 12-18:
The Court of International Trade announced on Jan. 15 a change to its rules on filing briefs in court cases involving antidumping and countervailing duties under 28 USC 1581(c) (here). The amendment to the court’s Standard Chambers Procedures (here), approved on Dec. 22, restricts the number of pages lawyers should include in documents attached as appendices to case briefs. The change takes effect Jan. 28.
All drawback entries filed before Dec. 3, 2004 deemed liquidated one year later and can no longer be reviewed by CBP, said the Court of International Trade on Dec. 13 as it ruled in favor of Ford Motor Company in a long-running dispute over a series of decade-old drawback claims (here). A law passed by Congress in 2004 providing for deemed liquidation of drawback entries also had the effect of cleaning out the backlog of claims existing at the time, regardless of whether the underlying import entries had liquidated, said the court.
Chipmaker Diablo Technologies immediately moved for a stay Monday in a federal judge’s preliminary injunction that bars the company from distributing or selling high-speed memory controller chipsets to SanDisk for its ULLtraDIMM solid-state drive product line. Supplier Netlist, which sued Diablo in August 2013 alleging breach of contract, trade secret misappropriations and other charges, won the injunction. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland granted the preliminary junction, in an order Monday. She denied Netlist’s motion for an order recalling all ULLtraDIMM modules that already have shipped, saying Netlist “has not met the higher burden associated with a mandatory injunction requiring a recall.” Diablo representatives didn’t comment. Diablo attorneys' motion for a stay, also filed Monday, said they plan to “challenge on appeal substantial questions of law which control the outcome of this matter.” For example, Diablo argued, Netlist waited 13 months after suing Diablo to move for a preliminary injunction, and that delay alone is at odds with Netlist claims that harms to the company would be imminent and irreparable without an injunction. “Netlist has not shown that its alleged harms hamper it from conducting its business,” Diablo said. “By contrast, issuance of the preliminary injunction against Diablo will be severe and irreparable.” Netlist trumpeted the granting of the injunction in a news release Tuesday that hailed the judge for her “extraordinary legal ruling,” saying the decision “is a validation of what we've said from the beginning about Diablo's flagrant actions.” Netlist has maintained in its complaint that it created and patented the “ground-breaking memory interface technology” at issue in the case. Netlist signed a supply agreement in which it “contracted with Diablo to implement a proprietary memory-controller chipset based on this technology, only to find that Diablo stole its trade secrets and incorporated them into Diablo's own products,” it said. SanDisk representatives didn’t comment.
An importer’s aborted first attempt at filing a court challenge didn’t stop the clock on the statute of limitations, ruled the Court of International Trade on Dec. 13 as it dismissed part of the importer’s case (here). American Power Pull Corp., an importer of hand trucks, challenged the denial of two protests by CBP. The company had filed its complaint well past the 180-day deadline for challenging one of the protests, and an earlier complaint on the same protest didn’t extend the deadline for filing suit, said CIT.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 5-11:
A federal judge on Jan. 6 denied a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit in Northern California U.S. District Court against a major olive oil multinational alleging fraud, false advertising, and unfair trade practices. The class action alleges Deoleo falsely labels its Bertolli and Carapelli brand olive oils are extra virgin when they are instead bottled and shipped in way that ensures the oil is degraded before it reaches the consumer. The labels also say the olive oil is “imported from Italy” when it is actually made from olives grown and pressed in several countries, it said. Deoleo filed an early motion to dismiss the case for failing to raise valid arguments, but District Judge Richard Seeborg found enough in the lawsuit to support moving the case forward.