Jacob Kopnick

Ljiljana Karadzic, wife of former Serbian President Radovan Karadzic, said the U.S. government's recent sponsorship of a U.N. Security Council Resolution related to petitions for sanctions delisting helps her case that the Office of Foreign Assets Control unreasonably delayed in ruling on her delisting petition (Ljiljana Karadzic v. Bradley Smith, D.D.C. # 23-01226).

The chair and ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, along with a bipartisan group of 53 representatives, filed an amicus brief last week in the suit against the TikTok ban to support the constitutionality of the ban (see 2406070023) (TikTok v. Merrick Garland, D.C. Cir. # 24-1113).

The Court of International Trade on Aug. 5 sustained the Commerce Department's decision to lower the countervailing duty subsidy rate for exporter Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. related to China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, from 10.54% to 0.87%. The result is a final, recalculated 22.2% total subsidy rate for Yama in the 2017 administrative review of the CVD order on narrow woven ribbons from China.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit gave text-only notice to exporter Canadian Solar that it failed to respond to the court's notice of oral argument in an appeal on the 2017-18 antidumping duty review on solar cells from China. Exporter Risen Energy Co. filed the appeal to claim that the Commerce Department failed to use the best information when setting surrogate values for the company's backsheet and ethyl vinyl acetate inputs (see 2305170049). While Risen waived its right to appear at oral argument (see 2408020019), the court told Canadian Solar that failure to respond to notice of oral argument "may result in dismissal or other action as deemed appropriate by the court" (Risen Energy Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1550).

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

The governments of Canada and Quebec, along with exporter Marmen Energy, vied for rehearing of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision sustaining the countervailability of a Canadian tax program. Filing for full court or en banc rehearing of the decision, the Canadian government said the court allowed the Commerce Department to ignore "economic reality" and elevated "form over substance" (The Government of Quebec v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1807)

The Court of International Trade earlier this month heard oral argument on whether a CBP protest denial effectively revoked a prior CBP protest decision by applying a different tariff classification to identical merchandise, and should have been subject to a notice-and-comment period (Under the Weather v. U.S., CIT # 21-00211).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit last week affirmed the convictions of six companies for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, customs fraud and promotional money laundering. However, the court said the trial court failed to resolve the parties' dispute on the value of the companies' warehouses before finding that they "lacked the ability to pay" the over $1.8 billion judgment and "ordering a nominal payment schedule."

Parts of the expert testimony submitted by the U.S. in a criminal export control case should be excluded from the trial because the experts relied on State Department commodity-jurisdiction determinations prepared outside the court, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said July 31. The court said the defendants didn't have a chance to cross-examine the State Department officials who prepared the determinations because they didn't offer testimony during trial.

Don Church of Texas pleaded guilty Aug. 1 to illegally importing protected Australian reptiles into the U.S. on behalf of a "fake zoo which he represented as legitimate," DOJ announced. Church entered 165 Australian reptiles, all covered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, by giving U.S. and Australian authorities false information.