New York resident Shuangyang Li filed a stipulation of dismissal in his case challenging several questions on his customs broker license exam. Li argued that many of the questions were unfairly ambiguous, conflicting or lacking essential information, leading to his failure to pass (see 2411220049). Li received a 73.75% score on the exam, just shy of the 75% passing grade. Li didn't respond to a request for comment on the reason for the dismissal or nature of the stipulation (Shuangyang Li v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, CIT # 24-00205).
Various trade-related agencies recently issued a unified report to President Donald Trump discussing a range of trade topics, including the administration of antidumping duty and countervailing duty laws, the White House announced. The administration released a summary of each section, noting that for AD/CVD laws, the report recommends adding new countries to the "list of non-market economies" and engaging in more self-initiation of new AD/CVD investigations.
The International Trade Commission filed a petition for writ of mandamus at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit following a recent Court of International Trade decision finding the commission's practice of automatically redacting questionnaire responses to be unlawful (see 2503270057) (In re United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-127).
The U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation released a threat assessment about possible sanctions violations by legal services providers, noting that since February 2022, the legal services sector has accounted for the second-highest number of suspected breach report submissions to OFSI. Legal services accounts for 16% of all submissions, behind first-place financial services with 65% of submissions.
The Court of International Trade's Pacer.gov system will undergo maintenance April 27 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. EDT, the court said. Users may have "intermittent issues" when logging onto CM/ECF and making payments through Pay.gov, the court said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on April 4 after issuing a decision finding that the Commerce Department's third factor for assessing a foreign government's de facto control over an exporter, which addresses the selection of management, doesn't require a link to export activities. The appellate court also said Commerce properly requires separate rate respondents to "carry a burden of persuasion to justify a separate rate," rejecting exporter Pirelli Tyre Co.'s claim that the agency shouldn't have conflated a rebuttable presumption with a requirement to carry a burden of persuasion (see 2502110030). The court found that Pirelli didn't rebut the presumption of foreign state control in the 2017-18 review of the antidumping duty order on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China (Pirelli Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2266).
Importer Amcor Flexibles Singen GmbH filed a stipulated judgment at the Court of International Trade in its customs suit on the classification of its aluminum foil entries. The judgment said the goods are to be classified under duty-free Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 7607.20.50, which covers other backed aluminum foil. CBP initially classified the goods under subheading 3921.90.40, which covers flexible products with textile components in which man-made fibers predominate by weight over any other single textile fiber. The product at issue is "20-micron aluminum foil, soft-temper, plain, bright side lacquer laminated to a 12-micron PET film" (Amcor Flexibles Singen GmbH v. United States, CIT # 16-00200).
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of paper importer Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified, on April 3 challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose 20% tariffs on all goods from China. Filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Simplified laid out three constitutional and statutory claims against the use of IEEPA to impose tariffs and one claim that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act for unlawfully modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).
Antigua and Barbuda formally accepted the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies on April 3, bringing the number of countries that have accepted the deal to 95. The WTO needs 16 more countries to accept to get to two-thirds of the membership, the threshold for the agreement to take effect.
Russian national Oleg Patsulya was sentenced April 2 to nearly six years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to ship controlled aviation technology to Russia in violation of U.S. export laws and to launder money in connection with the scheme, DOJ announced.