The Commerce Department is amending countervailing duty cash deposit rates for some exporters subject to CV duties on aluminum foil from China (C-570-054), it said in a notice implementing a recent Court of International Trade decision that invalidated rates the agency set in the antidumping duty final determination and order it issued in 2018 (see 1804180016). Commerce is lowering rates for Zhongji and the “all others” companies as a result of the decision. Changes announced in the notice, released Aug. 5, are applicable to entries on or after April 3, 2020, as follows:
Court of International Trade
The United States Court of International Trade is a federal court which has national jurisdiction over civil actions regarding the customs and international trade laws of the United States. The Court was established under Article III of the Constitution by the Customs Courts Act of 1980. The Court consists of nine judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is located in New York City. The Court has jurisdiction throughout the United States and has exclusive jurisdictional authority to decide civil action pertaining to international trade against the United States or entities representing the United States.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 27-Aug. 2:
The Court of International Trade on July 31 dismissed a challenge to an ongoing Enforce and Protect Act investigation of antidumping duty evasion, finding the importer must wait for the EAPA investigation to conclude before the court can have jurisdiction to decide the lawsuit.
Correction: The Court of International Trade's denied protest jurisdiction isn’t relevant in Trebbianno's lawsuit seeking refunds of Section 301 tariffs because the exclusions were not a CBP decision (see 2007270051), said Chris Kane of Simon Gluck, who represents Trebbianno, in a post on LinkedIn.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 20-26:
An importer has filed suit at the Court of International Trade seeking refunds on Section 301 tariffs based on exclusions issued after the relevant entries liquidated. Trebbianno, which does business as Showroom 35, seeks refunds of $270,040.90 in duties it paid on its imports of handbags, wallets and purses that were subsequently included under retroactive exclusions issued by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 13-19:
A nearly $3.5 million penalty case against an apparel importer will proceed, after the Court of International Trade on July 14 denied the importer’s bid to dismiss a second attempt by the government to collect. CIT had dismissed the government’s case in November because it did not allege with enough specificity the connection between Greenlight Organic’s owner, Sonny Aulakh, and the purported misclassification and double invoicing schemes that led CBP to assess $3,232,032 for customs fraud plus $238,516.56 in unpaid duties on both Greenlight and Aulakh (see 1911260047). It did allow the government to file another complaint to add more information. This time, additional information on the alleged schemes and their participants included in the second complaint were enough to get the case over the hump so it can progress to more detailed arguments, CIT said.
The president must strictly adhere to statutory timelines when setting Section 232 tariffs, and can’t subsequently modify or adjust those tariffs beyond those legal deadlines without conducting another formal investigation, the Court of International Trade said in a July 14 decision. The court found that President Donald Trump acted outside of these deadlines when he raised tariffs on Turkish steel from 25% to 50% in August 2018 (see 1808100003), granting two importers refunds of duties collected as a result of the tariff increase.
President Donald Trump's 2018 proclamation increasing the Section 232 tariffs on steel from Turkey violated "the animating statute and constitutional guarantees," a three-judge Court of International Trade panel said in a July 14 decision. The judges found that the proclamation fell outside the required time limits for making changes and Trump "acted without a proper report and recommendation by the [Commerce] Secretary on the national security threat posed by imports of steel products from Turkey."