The Court of International Trade issued a confidential opinion on Oct. 5 in a case from importer Southern Cross Seafoods pertaining to a U.S. move to ban imports of Patagonian toothish, referred to as Chilean sea bass, from the South Georgia fishery in the Atlantic Ocean. Per a letter to the litigants, Judge Timothy Reif gave the parties until Oct. 10 to review any potentially confidential information. The U.S. filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, which has been fully briefed, indicating that the opinion addresses this question, though the docket doesn't indicate which way the judge ruled (Southern Cross Seafoods v. United States, CIT # 22-00299).
The U.S. asked for an extended stay in a customs penalty suit against Greenlight Organic and its owner Parambir Singh "Sonny" Aulakh given that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York opened a criminal investigation on the evidence recovered during a search of Aulakh's residence. Filing a status report in the Court of International Trade, the government said the case should be stayed until Jan. 2, after which the U.S. will file another status report "updating the Court on whether a continued stay is needed" (United States v. Greenlight Organic, CIT # 17-00031).
The Commerce Department made multiple errors when it miscalculated benchmark data and its use of adverse inferences in a countervailing duty review on multilayered wood flooring from China, Chinese wood flooring exporters and consolidated plaintiffs Fine Furniture (Shanghai) and Double F said in an Sept. 29 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The brief raised similar points to one filed by respondent Baroque Timber Industries two weeks earlier (see 2309180042) (Baroque Timber Industries (Zhongshan) Co. v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 22-00210).
The Court of International Trade doesn't have subject-matter jurisdiction over the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's (FLETF) addition of entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, the U.S. argued in an Oct. 3 motion to dismiss. Seeking dismissal of a case filed by Chinese printer cartridge manufacturer Ninestar Corp., the government said that because the FLETF's decision is neither an embargo nor a quantitive restriction, the court doesn't have jurisdiction over the proceeding under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction (Ninestar Corp. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).
The Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Trade Justice Education Fund and two other environmental nonprofits are asking the Biden administration not to challenge the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism, or CBAM, at the World Trade Organization.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A proposed voluntary remand of an Enforce and Protect Act case should be allowed to proceed as is, over an importer's objections, DOJ said in an Oct. 2 brief to the Court of International Trade. DOJ filed a motion to remand the case in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling in Royal Brush Manufacturing v. U.S., in which the court said CBP violated an EAPA party's due process rights by not granting them access to business confidential information (see 2309150011) (Newtrend USA Co. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00347).
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The Court of International Trade's decision ordering CBP to reliquidate customs entries flatly cuts against a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision that ruled against reliquidation after a court case led to a higher dumping rate for a different exporter, retail giant Target told the appellate court (Target v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-2274).
A series of opinions from the Court of International Trade concerning whether the U.S. can file a counterclaim in classification cases do "not seem to change the fundamentals of classification litigation," customs lawyer Lawrence Friedman of Barnes Richardson said in a blog post. If the opinions are sustained on appeal, potential government claims seeking a different classification than the one initially used at liquidation by CBP may just be moved "from the counterclaim bucket to the defense bucket," the post said.