Court of International Trade

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 26 - Oct. 2:

Products are classifiable as “vitamins” in the tariff schedule if they are organic chemical micronutrients that are essential to humans but inadequately produced by the human body, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a decision issued Sept. 26 (here). CAFC reversed a 2015 ruling from the Court of International Trade that found carnitine imported by Sigma-Tau HealthScience is classifiable as a quaternary aluminum salt rather than a vitamin, holding that classification as a vitamin is correct because carnitine, though produced in sufficient amounts by adults, must be obtained from outside sources in newborn babies under four weeks old.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 19-25:

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 21 approved changes to its rules governing interrogatories and a new form for filing physical samples as evidence, it said (here). Other changes would also encourage parties to antidumping and countervailing duty cases to file a single joint appendix containing the parts of the administrative records cited by all parties. The amendments take effect Oct. 3.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 12-18:

Antidumping and countervailing duty scope rulings issued by the Commerce Department apply broadly to products, not just to the importer or producer that requested the scope ruling, the Court of International Trade said on Sept. 19 (here). CBP officers tasked with administering AD/CV duty collection at the ports, as well as other importers, may rely on scope rulings issued to unrelated companies as long as the product they’re importing is the same as the product covered by the scope ruling, CIT said as it told Commerce to reconsider its decision to assess AD/CV duties on curtain wall units imported by Jangho.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 5-11:

The Court of International Trade ordered an importer to pay $355,606.66 in penalties and unpaid duties for evading antidumping duties on candles it imported from China, in a ruling issued Sept. 7 (here). The judgment against NYCC 1959 comes on top of a $15,000 penalty assessed on the importer in 2015 for similar violations on 19 USC 1592 (see 1506220020). This time, the government alleged negligent violations in the importer’s failure to indicate on entry documentation that the merchandise was subject to the AD duty order on petroleum wax candles from China, costing the government $138,509.21 in unpaid duties. Once again, NYCC did not defend itself in court, so CIT found it in default and accepted the government’s allegations as fact.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 29 - Sept. 4:

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 26 affirmed (here) a recent decision by the Commerce Department that an assembled kitchen appliance door handle imported by Whirlpool is not subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China. Commerce’s redetermination, made “under protest,” comes in the wake of a CIT decision that aluminum extrusions that have undergone assembly operations are not subject to AD/CV duties (see 1602020072). Commerce had originally found the appliance door handle, consisting of a single aluminum extrusion with two plastic end caps, did not qualify for the “finished merchandise” exemption because that exemption excludes fasteners (see 14080602).