The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The U.S. swapped out its lead attorney in a case challenging CBP's denial of a Section 301 exclusion for its entries of "steel side protective attachments for motor vehicles, specifically side bars, fern bars, and bars." The government said Brandon Kennedy, a DOJ trade trial attorney, took the place of Edward Kenny, senior trial counsel at DOJ. The case was brought by importer MKI Enterprise Group, doing business as Winbo USA, to challenge CBP's denial of its protest seeking Section 301 exclusions the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative granted for "side protective attachments" (see 2404220057) (MKI Enterprise Group v. United States, CIT # 22-00131).

The Court of International Trade in a text-only order instructed importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Supply, to address "whether the court has jurisdiction to review the denial of a protest if the basis for the denial" is that CBP was "simply following" the Commerce Department's instructions (Acquisition 362 v. United States, CIT # 24-00011).

The Commerce Department was wrong to deduct Section 301 duties from an exporter’s U.S. price as part of its antidumping duty calculation, that exporter said May 3 in defense of an earlier motion for judgment. It said Section 301 duties aren’t “normal import duties,” but rather remedial “special” duties that statute requires be included in export price calculations (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00068).

The Court of International Trade May 3 dismissed the final charge remaining in a 2002 fraud case brought by the U.S. against an importer, Lee Hunt International, and a few of its sureties, including Frontier Insurance Co. (U.S. v. Lee-Hunt International, Inc., CIT # 02-00816).

The Court of International Trade on May 3 entered judgment for importer Fraserview Remanufacturing after CBP corrected the liquidation status of the company's entries. In January, the trade court said Fraserview didn't need a protest to file suit at the court for entries that were erroneously deemed liquidated while liquidation was suspended (see 2401250039) (Fraserview Remanufacturing v. U.S., CIT # 22-00244).

Importer van Gelder on May 3 moved to set aside the Court of International Trade's dismissal of its case for failure to prosecute, arguing that its counsel "overlooked -- by virtue of a calendaring mistake" -- the new deadline for the case after it was extended on the customs case management calendar (van Gelder v. U.S., CIT # 21-00160).

A domestic petitioner said in a May 3 complaint that the Commerce Department failed to explain why it hadn’t adjusted the conversion costs of a 2021-2022 antidumping duty review’s mandatory respondent even though it had done so in the past (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. U.S., CIT # 24-00070).

A Spanish olive growers industry group, Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa, along with Agro Sevilla Aceitunas and Angel Camacho Alimentacion, brought suit at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's finding that demand for the "prior stage product" is "substantially dependent" on demand for the "latter stage product," in the 2021 review of the countervailing duty order on ripe olives from Spain (Asociacion de Exportadores e Industriales de Aceitunas de Mesa v. United States, CIT # 24-00078).

In a May 1 complaint, a Malaysian exporter of utility scale wind towers took issue with several decisions made by the Commerce Department in a 2021-2022 countervailing duty administrative review, including its refusal to grant an entered value adjustment (EVA) and its choice of surrogate market (CS Wind Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00079).