No lawsuits have been filed recently at the Court of International Trade.

The U.S. dropped its appeal of a Court of International Trade decision finding that CBP isn't entitled to Customs Passenger Processing Fees paid by individual passengers who cancel their tickets and never actually travel to the U.S. After the government said it was dropping the case against Southwest Airlines, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed the proceeding (Southwest Airlines Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 25-1797).

Exporter Kumho Tire (Vietnam) will appeal the Court of International Trade's decision sustaining the Commerce Department's decision to countervail Vietnamese currency undervaluation, according to an Oct. 21 notice of appeal. In August, the trade court upheld Commerce's finding that the currency undervaluation program was specific to the traded goods sector and thus countervailable in the countervailing duty investigation on passenger vehicle and light truck tires (see 2508220052). In an earlier decision, Judge Timothy Reif held that the agency had the authority to countervail currency undervaluation programs (see 2410280035). Kumho Tire now will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Kumho Tire (Vietnam) v. United States, CIT # 21-00397).

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 21 granted the government's motion for default judgment against importer E-Dong, U.S.A. for negligently failing to pay a federal excise tax on 20 entries of its "Korean distilled beverage soju." Judge Timothy Reif ordered E-Dong to pay $234,748.30 in unpaid federal excise tax along with pre- and post-judgment interest, which shall be calculated according to the relevant statutes.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 17 rejected both the government’s and law firm Husch Blackwell’s motions for judgment in a Freedom of Information Act dispute involving the Entity List. It gave the Commerce Department time to provide adequate justifications for its decisions to withhold certain information but said the ones it already provided weren’t enough (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 24-2733.

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

Importer FCMT on Oct. 16 dismissed three cases it brought at the Court of International Trade on CBP's appraisal of its apparel entries. The company filed a trio of complaints in May claiming that CBP failed to use the products' transaction value to appraise the merchandise and that CBP engaged in an "arbitrary and fictitious appraisement" of the merchandise (see 2506020020). FCMT said CBP appraised the Chinese merchandise using an "unknown method of appraisement" and merely increased the value of the merchandise by 148% (FCMT v. United States, CIT #s 21-00242, -00243, -00247).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s Oct. 8 decision clarifying the cross-owned input provider regulations also is applicable in a Turkish rebar case before CAFC, a petitioner said in an Oct. 13 letter (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1431).

The U.S. will appeal a recent Court of International Trade decision vacating the Commerce Department's decision not to collect antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (Auxin Solar v. United States, CIT # 23-00274).

More domestic producers in an Ecuadorian shrimp case objected Oct. 10 to exporters’ motion to supplement the judicial record. They also brought a challenge to the exporters’ further request for more briefing on the issue (Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscila v. United States, CIT Consol. # 25-00025).