The Court of International Trade should dismiss a government counterclaim of unpaid duties in a classification case on dried botanicals imported by Second Nature Designs because DOJ pointed to no authority that gave it a cause of action to assert a claim to collect duties in excess of those assessed during final liquidation, Second Nature said in a May 17 brief in support of its motion to dismiss the counterclaim (Second Nature Designs v. U.S., CIT # 18-00131).
The U.S.'s customs penalty suit against importer Wanxiang America Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese manufacturing company, is a "money grab, plain and simple," Michael Roll, counsel for WXA, said during oral argument at the Court of International Trade on May 17. Roll said that because the U.S. is only seeking a penalty for WXA's entries from a company with a 92.84% dumping rate and not entries made before or after the ones at issue from a company with a zero percent rate, it is clear the government is trying to "grab the money" (United States v. Wanxiang America Corp., CIT # 22-00205).
A series of export control indictments announced this week, including several for illegal shipments to China and Russia, only scratched the surface of prosecutions expected to be brought as part of the new Disruptive Technology Strike Force, said Matthew Axelrod, the Bureau of Industry and Security's top export enforcement official. “It’s just the beginning,” Axelrod said during a May 17 law conference hosted by the American Bar Association, Mayer Brown and American University. “I think you can expect to continue to see actions come out from the strike force as this work continues.”
Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey for Western Arkansas in El Dorado granted the unopposed motion from TikTok and ByteDance to stay their Tuesday deadline to respond to Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s (R) fraud allegations, pending Griffin’s anticipated motion to remand the case to Union County Circuit Court where it originated, said Hickey’s signed order Monday (docket 1:23-cv-01038). Good cause exists for granting the motion, said the order, setting June 8 as the deadline for Griffin to file his motion to remand. If the court denies the motion to remand, Griffin will get 30 days to amend his complaint, and TikTok and ByteDance will have 30 days after the filing of the amended complaint “to file their responsive pleadings,” said the order. If the court denies the motion for remand and Griffin doesn’t want to amend his complaint, TikTok and ByteDance will then have 30 days after the denial to file their responsive pleadings to Griffin’s “original, unamended complaint,” it said. Griffin alleges TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy is misleading because it doesn’t alert the public to TikTok’s ability to share personal data with individuals or entities in China (see 2305100036). The complaint asserts seven claims under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and seeks a permanent injunction to compel TikTok to cease its allegedly false and deceptive statements and omissions about the risk of access to and exploitation of consumers’ content and data by Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade should not again remand an antidumping duty investigation on forged steel fluid end blocks from Germany because respondent Ellwood City Forge failed to exhaust its administrative remedies regarding the margin program before it filed suit at CIT, intervenor Edelstahl Siegen said in its May 15 remand comments (Ellwood City Forge v. U.S., CIT # 21-00077).
The Court of International Trade granted the Commerce Department's voluntary request for remand for 120 days to review information submitted by antidumping duty respondent Officine Tecnosider on the agency's use of a quarterly cost methodology. Commerce asked for the remand since it said it couldn't find its analysis of the quarterly average prices of steel slab when prepping its reply brief to Officine Tecnosider in a case on the administrative review of the AD order on carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Italy for 2020-21 (see 2305080066) (Officine Tecnosider v. United States, CIT # 23-00001).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of May 8-14:
Plaintiffs EDN Global and its CEO, Jerome Edmondson, are seeking a “do-over,” trying to “plead around” a contract at the heart of a fraud claim against AT&T Global Services, said the defendant in a Friday memorandum (docket 3:23-cv-00355) in support of its amended motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas.
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