The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 1-7:
A federal appeals court on June 5 struck down an exemption from Environmental Protection Agency mercury reporting rules for importers of assembled products. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said an exemption in EPA’s 2018 mercury reporting regulations for importers of products containing a mercury-added component runs afoul of requirements in Toxic Substances Control Act reform legislation passed in 2016 to require such reporting (see 1806270033). On the other hand, the court upheld a similar exemption for manufacturers because the mercury-added components would have already been subject to reporting, and also upheld an exemption for importers and manufacturers of large quantities of elemental mercury, because such reporting is already required under chemical data reporting rules.
The Department of Justice charged a Chinese manufacturer with making and sending to the U.S. “nearly half a million misbranded and defective masks that falsely purported to be N95 respirators,” the DOJ said in a June 5 news release. The manufacturer, King Year Packaging and Printing Co. Ltd., faces “three counts of violating the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) for causing misbranded and substandard respirators that falsely purported to meet the N95 standard to be imported,” the DOJ said. CBP seized a shipment of more than 95,000 masks at JFK Airport in New York City from China, according to the complaint.
The Justice Department released an updated compliance program guidance urging industry to rely more on data, learn from past compliance penalties and improve compliance training. But the guidance, issued June 1, also introduces a “subtle” shift in how prosecutors will assess compliance programs, law firms said: More of an emphasis will be placed on determining whether programs are built to adapt to new compliance risks or whether they only rely on bare minimum measures.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of May 25-31:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative issued a statement late on May 27 criticizing a Court of International Trade decision issued that day that kept in place an injunction barring the withdrawal of an exemption for bifacial panels from Section 201 safeguard duties on solar cells (see 2005270025). “Today, Judge Katzmann of the Court of International Trade blocked USTR from closing the bifacial panel exception. USTR strongly disagrees with Judge Katzmann’s analysis,” the statement said. “The solar industry and the jobs it represents are important to this country, and USTR will take all necessary and appropriate steps to ensure that its safeguard relief is effective.”
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of May 18-24:
A marine wildlife conservation group and its New Zealand branch filed suit at the Court of International Trade May 21, seeking a ban on imports of fish and fishery products from New Zealand caught using techniques that they say have driven the Maui dolphin to near extinction. Sea Shepherd and Sea Shepherd New Zealand say the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration improperly denied a 2019 petition for a ban under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. They say the use of gillnet and trawl nets in the waters around New Zealand have caused the numbers of the Maui dolphin to dwindle from 2,000 in 1970 to just 57 dolphins in 2016. The lawsuit requests that CIT issue a lawsuit banning imports of all fish or fish products caught in, or derived from, New Zealand commercial fisheries that use gillnets or trawl nets that result in the incidental kill or incidental serious injury of Maui dolphins.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of May 11-17:
A penalty action against an alleged importer of prohibited HID headlight conversion kits will proceed, after the Court of International Trade on May 15 denied Kevin Ho’s motion to dismiss the case against him. Ho claimed he never received a final penalty notice, as is required before the government seeks to collect penalties in court, but CIT found that CBP delivered the notice to two of Ho’s known addresses, and that under the “mailbox rule,” that Ho is presumed to have received it.