A nearly $3.5 million penalty case against an apparel importer will proceed, after the Court of International Trade on July 14 denied the importer’s bid to dismiss a second attempt by the government to collect. CIT had dismissed the government’s case in November because it did not allege with enough specificity the connection between Greenlight Organic’s owner, Sonny Aulakh, and the purported misclassification and double invoicing schemes that led CBP to assess $3,232,032 for customs fraud plus $238,516.56 in unpaid duties on both Greenlight and Aulakh (see 1911260047). It did allow the government to file another complaint to add more information. This time, additional information on the alleged schemes and their participants included in the second complaint were enough to get the case over the hump so it can progress to more detailed arguments, CIT said.
Court of International Trade
The United States Court of International Trade is a federal court which has national jurisdiction over civil actions regarding the customs and international trade laws of the United States. The Court was established under Article III of the Constitution by the Customs Courts Act of 1980. The Court consists of nine judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is located in New York City. The Court has jurisdiction throughout the United States and has exclusive jurisdictional authority to decide civil action pertaining to international trade against the United States or entities representing the United States.
The president must strictly adhere to statutory timelines when setting Section 232 tariffs, and can’t subsequently modify or adjust those tariffs beyond those legal deadlines without conducting another formal investigation, the Court of International Trade said in a July 14 decision. The court found that President Donald Trump acted outside of these deadlines when he raised tariffs on Turkish steel from 25% to 50% in August 2018 (see 1808100003), granting two importers refunds of duties collected as a result of the tariff increase.
President Donald Trump's 2018 proclamation increasing the Section 232 tariffs on steel from Turkey violated "the animating statute and constitutional guarantees," a three-judge Court of International Trade panel said in a July 14 decision. The judges found that the proclamation fell outside the required time limits for making changes and Trump "acted without a proper report and recommendation by the [Commerce] Secretary on the national security threat posed by imports of steel products from Turkey."
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 6-12:
An importer must pay nearly $1 million in penalties for customs fraud, after the Court of International Trade on July 9 found the importer knowingly misclassified its entries to save on duty, despite repeated instructions from CBP on the correct classification of the merchandise.
A three-judge panel at the Court of International Trade will hear a recently filed Section 232 challenge that opens a new front in the battle of steel importers against the tariffs. Maple Leaf Marketing (MLM), distributor of oil industry pipe that is exported from the U.S. to Canada for processing before being re-imported in improved form, says that CBP in April illegally expanded Section 232 tariffs to cover U.S. goods returned under subheading 9802.00.0050 (see 2004130056).
No new lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade, nor any appeals of CIT decisions filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, during the week of June 29 - July 5.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 2 affirmed a lower court ruling that found plastic Apple iPad 2 “smart cover” cases are classifiable in the tariff schedule as articles of plastic, not as accessories for automatic data processing machines, despite their additional function as a stand.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 22-28:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 22-26 in case they were missed.