Apple and Intel were the two heavy hitters joining the Section 301 litigation Aug. 20, when two dozen complaints in total were filed at the Court of International Trade seeking to vacate the lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese goods and get the duties refunded. It was the highest volume of complaints filed on a single day since early in the litigation that will be a year old Sept. 10. Aug. 20 marked two years after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative published its Federal Register notice imposing List 4A tariffs (see 2108190063). Court rules require plaintiffs to begin an action within two years “after the cause of action first accrues.” Intel “timely filed this action with respect to any entry of merchandise on which List 4A duties have been assessed, and any entry of merchandise on which List 3 duties were not definitively assessed before August 20, 2019,” the chipmaker’s complaint said, using language typical in the others filed the same day. Importers will likely argue alternatively in complaints yet to come that their two-year clocks started when List 4A took effect Sept. 1, 2019, or when they paid their first tariffs or their customs entries reached liquidation.

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department found that the Rediscount Loan Program offered to Kenertec Power System is an export subsidy and thus excluded from Kenertec's upstream subsidy calculation in a countervailing duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Indonesia, it said in Aug. 19 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. Bringing the results of the review in line with CIT's decision in the matter, Commerce dropped the loan program from the CV rate it calculated in the investigation, resulting in a de minimis CVD rate for Kenertec (PT. Kenertec Power System & Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. U.S., CIT #21-03687).

Washington state-based importer Keirton USA filed a complaint in the Court of International Trade on Aug. 19 after the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington found that the trade court was the case's proper jurisdictional home. Keirton, a self-described importer of "agricultural equipment used to process cannabis and other farm goods, including hemp and kale" is challenging CBP's deemed exclusions of shipments of such machinery as "drug paraphernalia" (Keirton USA, Inc. v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CIT #21-00452).

A Spanish exporters association moved to stay proceedings in one of its Court of International Trade cases pending the resolution of another one of its CIT cases, both concerning countervailing duty administrative reviews on ripe olives from Spain. The case the association moved to stay concerns the first administrative review, and shares much of the same fact pattern in the other case, Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa et al v. United States. The association believes staying the case would narrow the issues for the court to decide on, specifically "(i) whether Commerce’s interpretation and application of Section 771B of the Tariff Act of 1930 was lawful with respect to the attribution of grower subsidies to processors of the subject merchandise; and (ii) whether Commerce’s interpretation and application of Section 771(5A)(D)(i) of the Tariff Act of 1930 was lawful in relation to BPS and Greening support payments." Both the U.S. and the defendant-intervenor Musca Family Olive Company stated that they do not oppose the motion (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa et al v. United States, CIT #21-00338).

The Commerce Department effectively locked out Siemens Energy's Spanish subsidiary, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, from an antidumping duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Spain, the exporter argued in an Aug. 18 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Having applied adverse facts available and denied all exporters the right to be individually examined, Commerce failed to live up to its statutory obligations, SGRE said (Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy v. United States, CIT #21-00449).

Jorge Nobrega, chief executive of Achabal Technologies, was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and commit money laundering, according to an Aug. 16 complaint filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Nobrega was charged in particular with violating the sanctions on Venezuela by repairing Venezuelan Air Force combat aircraft without an authorization (United States of America v. Jorge Nobrega, S.D. Fla. #21-03590).

The Court of International Trade stayed proceedings in Stanley Black & Decker's case challenging the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff expansion to include steel "derivative" products pending the PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S. case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In back-to-back orders on Aug. 18, the court also issued a preliminary injunction against Stanley's entries subject to the steel derivatives tariffs (Stanley Black & Decker v. U.S., CIT #21-00262). Seeing as the PrimeSource case is the case on the forefront of the Section 232 steel derivatives tariff question, resolution of Stanley's case will wait until its appeal is settled. "The ultimate resolution of the PrimeSource case will likely resolve this matter without the necessity of going to trial, or, alternatively, it may narrow the issues in dispute," Stanley's motion for the stay said (see 2108030067).

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.

A seafood importer, Kendell Seafood Imports, can't skirt a more than $2.5 million bill for shipments of Chilean sea bass it ordered from fishing company Chilean Sea Bass Inc., the latter company said in an Aug. 16 complaint at the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Since Kendell entered into a contract in good faith for over $5 million in sea bass for 2019-2020 and has only paid a fraction of that total price tag, the importer must pay the remainder of the bill, CSB said (Chilean Sea Bass Inc. v. Kendell Seafood Imports, Inc., D.R.I. #21-00337).