CBP announced the launch of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation and the imposition of “interim measures” on BGI Group for alleged evasion of antidumping and countervailing duties on wooden cabinets and vanities by way of transshipment through Vietnam, the agency said in a recent notice. CBP will suspend liquidation and require cash deposits as of March 26, 2021, for entries from Vietnam from the BGI Group, which does business as U.S. Cabinet Depot.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's July 13 decision in favor of President Donald Trump's Section 232 tariff increase for Turkish steel past the 105-day deadline set by statute may be a serious setback for Turkish steel exporters (see 2107130059), but what it means for the remaining litigation challenging the president's authority under Section 232, Section 301 or any other statute granting the executive tariff powers is less clear, lawyers said in the days following the decision.

Opposing sides in the Section 301 litigation appeared from the July 15 status conference at the U.S. Court of International Trade to be inching toward a compromise that would spare CBP the administrative burden of complying with the court's July 6 preliminary injunction (PI) order freezing liquidation of many thousands of unliquidated customs entries with lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure. The court called the conference to gauge progress in creating the order's "repository" for importers to seek the suspension of entries due to be liquidated during a 28-day temporary restraining order period that expires Aug. 2.

The Commerce Department will only partially apply adverse facts available for sales a diamond sawblade exporter made to its U.S. affiliate, which used a first-in-first-out methodology to keep track of its country of origin data when calculating the exporter's antidumping rate, it said in remand results filed by the agency July 13. The filing comes to the Court of International Trade after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit left it up to the trade court to determine if a further remand was needed. The Federal Circuit held that a remand was appropriate for Commerce to determine if it could disregard the exporter's U.S. sales using the FIFO methodology (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers' Coalition v. United States, CIT #17-00167).

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The president may impose greater Section 232 national security tariffs beyond the 105-day timeframe for action set out in the statute, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a July 13 ruling. Overturning a lower court ruling, the Federal Circuit found that the underlying law's deadline for the president to take "action" can refer to a "plan of action" carried out over a period of time following the 105-day deadline. That authority is not unlimited, though, in that modifications must be related to the underlying reasoning for the tariffs and those reasons can't be "stale," CAFC said.

A group of surety associations should not be able to argue against when the six-year limitations period begins for a customs bond due to their role in "abetting the new shipper bond disaster," a group of domestic agricultural goods producers said in a July 8 amicus brief in the Court of International Trade. The brief was filed to oppose the surety associations' motion to intervene in the lawsuit (United States v. American Home Assurance Company, CIT #20-00175).

A furniture importer's argument that the Enforce and Protect Act investigation finding it guilty of antidumping duty evasion was unconstitutional is not valid since the importer does not have a protectable interest, the Department of Justice said in a July 9 brief in the Court of International Trade. Since a protectable interest is necessary to claim a due process violation has been committed, Aspects Furniture International's constitutional arguments against the EAPA process fall flat, DOJ said (Aspects Furnitre International, Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-03824).

Among the recent plethora of lawsuits filed in the Court of International Trade challenging the constitutionality of the Enforce and Protect Act process for investigating evasion of antindumping and countervailing duty orders (see 2106070011), at least one invokes the Eighth Amendment, a rarely litigated part of the U.S. Constitution. Filed by trade lawyer David Craven on behalf of Global Aluminum Distributor, the lawsuit challenges EAPA penalties based on the amendment's prohibition on excessive fines.

Two importers of steel grating from China didn't declare the goods as subject to antidumping and countervailing duty orders as required, CBP said in a recently posted notice of determination. CBP made the determination following an allegation from Hog Slat that prompted an investigation into Ikadan System USA and Weihai Gaosai Metal Product under the Enforce and Protect Act. The investigation involved entries of "galvanized steel Tri-Bar Floor product (tribar floors), composed of rolled steel rods welded to another steel cross rod (i.e., a product of two or more pieces of steel joined together by assembly)," CBP said.