A marine wildlife conservation group and its New Zealand branch filed suit at the Court of International Trade May 21, seeking a ban on imports of fish and fishery products from New Zealand caught using techniques that they say have driven the Maui dolphin to near extinction. Sea Shepherd and Sea Shepherd New Zealand say the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration improperly denied a 2019 petition for a ban under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. They say the use of gillnet and trawl nets in the waters around New Zealand have caused the numbers of the Maui dolphin to dwindle from 2,000 in 1970 to just 57 dolphins in 2016. The lawsuit requests that CIT issue a lawsuit banning imports of all fish or fish products caught in, or derived from, New Zealand commercial fisheries that use gillnets or trawl nets that result in the incidental kill or incidental serious injury of Maui dolphins.
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 Court of International Trade on May 18 again held that CBP plays a central role in the Section 337 exclusion order enforcement process, reiterating its earlier decision that exclusions may be protestable and challenged at the trade court (see 2003040057).
Jewelry boxes imported by The Kalencom Corporation have an “outer surface of sheeting of plastics,” and carry a higher duty rate than paper jewelry boxes, the Court of International Trade said in a May 18 decision. Though the boxes are made of paper, the plastic films applied to that paper form the outer surface, and constitute “sheeting” despite their thinness, CIT said, over Kalencom’s objections.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of May 11-17:
A penalty action against an alleged importer of prohibited HID headlight conversion kits will proceed, after the Court of International Trade on May 15 denied Kevin Ho’s motion to dismiss the case against him. Ho claimed he never received a final penalty notice, as is required before the government seeks to collect penalties in court, but CIT found that CBP delivered the notice to two of Ho’s known addresses, and that under the “mailbox rule,” that Ho is presumed to have received it.
CBP will begin processing refunds for some substitution drawback claims involving internal revenue taxes, after the Court of International Trade on May 15 denied the government’s motion to stay its recent decision invalidating portions of CBP’s drawback regulations, pending an appeal to the Federal Circuit.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of May 4-10:
Used clothing need not have fabric that is stressed or deteriorated from continued use to be classified as worn clothing in the tariff schedule, the Court of International Trade said in a May 6 decision that runs counter to more than two decades of CBP rulings and guidance on the subject.
Juice “bottle toppers” that depict the heads of popular children’s characters are classifiable in the tariff schedule as lids, not as toys, the Court of International Trade said in a May 5 decision. Good2Grow, the importer, argued that the bottle toppers are classifiable in a duty-free provision of Chapter 95, but CIT found that a note excluding kitchenware, tableware, bed linens and similar articles with utilitarian functions from classification in that chapter applies to all goods with a primarily utilitarian purpose, and not just festive articles.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of April 27 - May 3: