Palm oil importer Virtus Nutrition, LLC wants an expedited ruling on itsmore than $2 million in palm oil imports held up by CBP, filing a motion for assignment of a judge and an application for an order directing the U.S. government to show cause why an expedited litigation schedule should not be entered on May 12. Due to storage fees of over $35,000 a month agreed to between Virtus and the port director of CBP for the Port of San Francisco/Oakland, the importer wants to quickly get a ruling on the case and free up the palm oil imports.
The Commerce Department failed to substantiate the quantity of fish meal and fish oil byproducts when granting a byproduct offset in a remand of an antidumping case, the defendant intervenor, the Catfish Farmers of America, argued in the Court of International Trade. Opposing remand results in a May 11 filing in CIT, CFA said Commerce's decision to flip its byproduct offset ruling on plaintiff NTSF Seafoods Joint Stock Co.'s fish meal and fish oil products was contrary to agency practice and the law. The decision to grant the offset failed to “substantiate” byproduct production and used “unreasonable surrogates to value NTSF's fish meal and oil by-product offsets,” CFA argued. NTSF agreed with the remand results in its own comments.
Since CBP seized a shipment of a cannabis crude extract recovery machine and did not subject it to deemed exclusion from entry, a case challenging the seizure does not have jurisdiction in the Court of International Trade, the Department of Justice said in a May 12 reply brief supporting its motion to dismiss. Importer Root Sciences argues that since it received a notice of seizure after the date of deemed exclusion, its shipment was deemed excluded from entry and thus warranting of jurisdiction in CIT, but citing past court precedent, DOJ said that notice of seizure is not the date of seizure, declaring that "a seizure necessarily occurs prior to the date on which Customs issues the notice of seizure," (Root Sciences, LLC v. United States, CIT # 21-00123).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Department of Justice requested a stay of proceedings in an antidumping case in the Court of International Trade, arguing that there is significant overlap with a case currently before the Federal Circuit on the issue of whether a particular market situation existed in South Korea for the product in question. Filing for the stay in a case brought by SeAH Steel Corporation challenging the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on certain oil country tubular goods from South Korea, DOJ said that the Federal Circuit's decision will answer one of the central questions in SeAH's lawsuit, and would "likely streamline the issues in the case" (SeAH Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT # 19-00086). Plaintiffs do not consent to the stay request.
The Department of Defense has agreed to a final order dropping the designation of Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi Corporation as a Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC), according to a May 11 joint status report filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Xiaomi supports the order, the report said, leaving the parties to negotiate over specifics before a final proposed order is to be submitted on or before May 20.
A group of importers involved in the litigation over the Section 301 tariffs sent a letter on May 7 to the White House urging a settlement in the case to "alleviate the economic and social harms these tariffs have caused to U.S. companies, U.S. workers and the overall U.S. economy." Led by the importers selected to serve as the test case for the litigation, HMTX Industries and Jasco Products Company, the companies told the White House they are seeking an end to the tariffs and a full refund of the "unlawfully" collected lists 3 and 4A duties collected from the companies. The case is currently making its way through the Court of International Trade.
Sections 301 and 232 tariffs have created greater exposure to trade-related False Claims Act allegations, Sidley Austin said in a May 10 analysis. Since President Donald Trump drastically increased CBP's workload via the tariffs, greater incentives now exist to skirt the tariffs through fraudulent activity such as transshipment or inappropriate country of origin analysis for imports. This incentive for fraudulent activity mirrors the ramped-up incentives for the FCA allegations by those seeking to obtain a financial award for calling out the illegal behavior, the firm said.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Flooring importer FD Sales Company, LLC launched a challenge in the Court of International Trade claiming that CBP improperly denied some of its imports exclusions from Section 301 tariffs (FD Sales Company v. U.S., CIT # 21-00244). In a May 7 complaint, FD Sales said it brought in 49 entries of vinyl flooring, engineered wood flooring, “Aquaguard” wood flooring, tile saws and tile nippers on which it was granted exclusions from the Section 301 tariffs. The importer sought a refund of $671,442.81 in duties paid on the goods, of which $238,025.44 was granted by CBP. FD Sales claims that its imports were properly excluded from the additional duties “pursuant to exclusions to Section 301 granted by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.”