There’s a steady recent uptick in the volume of Section 301 complaints at the U.S. Court of International Trade, but lawyers with active cases told us they're not sure if that’s to do with Friday’s two-year anniversary of the Federal Register notice on Aug. 20, 2019, that put the List 4A tariffs into effect on Sept. 1, 2019, on goods from China. All the roughly 3,800 complaints (and counting) inundating the court seek to vacate the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs and get the money refunded on grounds that the duties are unlawful under the 1974 Trade Act and violate 1930 Administrative Procedure Act protections against sloppy rulemakings.
The Court of International Trade consolidated six challenges to the Commerce Department's denials of Section 232 steel and aluminum exclusion requests in an Aug. 17 order. Judge M. Miller Baker said the cases brought by North American Interpipe, Evraz Inc., Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, AM/NS Calvert, California Steel Industries and Valbruna Slater Stainless will be jointly considered for the "limited purpose of resolving the motions to remand."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A motion for judgment submitted by plaintiff Fujian Yinfeng Imp & Exp Trading Co. was rejected by the Court of International Trade's Judge M. Miller Baker on Aug. 17 due to a failure to comply with formatting requirements. In a notice from the court, Baker said that the motion was rejected since it failed to include a glossary of case-specific acronyms and abbreviations. The corrected document was instructed to be refiled by Aug. 25 (Fujian Yinfeng Imp & Exp Trading Co., Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #21-00088).
OtterBox's victory in a Court of International Trade case setting a lower duty rate in a customs challenge on smartphone covers cannot be extended to a prior disclosure made by OtterBox, CIT said in an Aug. 18 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly ruled that the court did not have the jurisdiction to make the determination that entries not part of the Summons of the case should be reliquidated.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade denied Otter Products' motion for leave to file a reply and to enforce judgment as part of a customs case in an Aug. 18 opinion. OtterBox sought refunds on a prior disclosure it made on imports of smartphone covers since it prevailed in another CIT case on entries of the same product. The court ruled against OtterBox in this instance, citing a lack of jurisdiction. “Because the entries associated with the Prior Disclosure were not part of the Subject Protest, they are not part of this action and the Court does not have jurisdiction to order the relief OtterBox requests,” the opinion said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 9-15:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Target's attempt to fight off the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss a customs case at the Court of International Trade falls flat, DOJ argued in an Aug. 13 reply brief. Following practices codified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, CIT properly ordered the reliquidation of improperly liquidated ironing tables from China, DOJ said, backing the court's authority to do so (Target Corp. v. U.S., CIT #21-00162).