A customs broker license test taker filed suit at the Court of International Trade after two appeals of her final score on the Customs Broker License Examination failed to result in a passing grade. Filing the case without an attorney, Shuzhen Zhong wants the court to review the six questions she appealed to CBP, of which she only received credit for one upon reconsideration. Zhong took particular issue with CBP's getting both her address and gender wrong when returning the results of her appeal (Zhong v. United States, CIT #22-00041).
The Commerce Department reasonably derived the separate rate respondents' dumping margin in an antidumping duty investigation by averaging the mandatory respondents' zero percent and adverse facts available rates, petitioner Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood said in a Feb. 3 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to arguments made by the plaintiffs, led by Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co., Celtic Co. and Taraca Pacific, the coalition said that Commerce properly relied on the information laid out in the petition to derive the rates since it was already vetted by Commerce as part of the pre-initiation phase of the investigation (Linyi Chengen Import and Export Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #18-00002).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska permitted an amicus brief to be filed in a case brought by two shipping companies contesting hefty Jones Act penalties over their shipments of fish from Alaska to the East Coast of the U.S. The brief from logistics company Lineage Logistics Holdings was permitted despite opposition from the Department of Justice, which argued that the brief does not raise any new issues (Kloosterboer International Forwarding LLC v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198).
The effective dates of the Commerce Department's partial revocation of the antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells from China ran contrary to the agency's stated practice, because they excluded unliquidated entries that weren't subject to the final results of an administrative review or automatic liquidation at the time, importer Source Global said in a Feb. 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Source Global, PBC v. United States, CIT #22-00009).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Dominican aluminum extrusion manufacturer Kingtom Aluminio is guilty of evading the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, CBP said in a Feb. 4 evasion determination. Already party to two Enforce and Protect Act evasion inquiries as a producer, Kingtom was found guilty of evasion in a separate case where it acted as the importer of record. In fact, CBP used the fact that Kingtom began importing aluminum extrusions into the U.S. itself following the other two EAPA cases as evidence of Kingtom's alleged evasion.
Challenge to Lack of Section 301 Refund Not an Entry-Specific Matter, Importers Tell Federal Circuit
A CBP protest was not needed to establish jurisdiction in two companies' challenge to CBP's assessment of Section 301 tariffs on goods subsequently granted a tariff exclusion since the challenge is not an entry-specific matter, the companies, ARP Materials and Harrison Steel, said in a Feb. 7 brief. Replying to the U.S.'s arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the plaintiff-appellants said that their challenge has jurisdiction under Section 1581(i), the trade court's "residual" jurisdiction provision, since the action relates to CBP's imposition of the requirements of an "inapt statute" to all the entries excluded from tariff lists 2 and 3 (ARP Materials Inc. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2176).
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued its final judgment in a case which found Japanese manufacturer Sigma Corporation, along with other companies, guilty of False Claims Act violations related to not paying antidumping duties. The final judgment comes after the final jury verdict in the case. Sigma was found liable for over $24.2 million in damages and civil monetary penalties exceeding $1.8 million.
The Commerce Department excluded importer Star Pipe Products' 11 ductile iron flanges from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings because the Court of International Trade left no alternative, Commerce said in a Feb. 7 brief. Responding to U.S. producer ASC Engineered Solutions arguments in a reply brief at CIT, Commerce said that even though the court initially agreed that the plain scope language included Star Pipe's flanges in the AD order, it said this was insufficient to include the flanges (Star Pipe Products v. United States, CIT #17-00236).
The Commerce Department stuck with its application of adverse facts available over certain countervailing duty respondents' alleged use of China's Exporter Buyer's Credit Program in its Feb. 9 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade, responding to a series of questions the court wanted answered on why the agency's lack of certain information from the Chinese government precluded its ability to verify that the respondents didn't use the program (Cooper (Kunshan) Tire Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #20-00113).