The Environmental Protection Agency and CBP worked together at Southern California ports to enforce emission controls requirements for foreign-made engines and vehicles, resulting in more than $530,000 in fines, the EPA said in a March 12 news release. “Oversight of foreign-made engines imported through southern California ports is a priority,” EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Mike Stoker said. “The enforcement cases announced today prevented hundreds of thousands of pounds of harmful air pollutants from being emitted into our air. We will continue to look work with CBP to ensure that items coming into the U.S. meet federal emissions requirements.” The EPA's release includes a list of some of largest fines issued. The biggest individual penalty listed was for $240,000 to Piaggio, due to imports of 5,009 motorcycles “that contained catalysts that did not conform to the description as certified by EPA,” the agency said.
Lumber Liquidators will pay a $33 million penalty for giving investors false statements about the U.S. sale of its laminate flooring from China, according to a March 12 Department of Justice press release. The settlement stems from the underlying issues involved in a 2016 case in which the company allegedly sold flooring that did not meet California Air Resources Board emission standards for formaldehyde (see 1603230014). After the original allegations were levied, and aired in a 2015 "60 Minutes" segment, DOJ said, the company knowingly filed false information with the Securities and Exchange Commission, “broadly denying” the allegations and insisting that it followed regulations. The $33 million in penalties represents the net profits from Lumber Liquidators’ sale of Chinese laminate flooring between January and May 2015, the release said. As part of the settlement, the company also agreed to cooperate with DOJ in its ongoing investigation, and to “implement rigorous internal controls” and “remedial efforts,” including installing new compliance policies and replacing its senior executive management team.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 4-10:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision in Trek Leather continues even now to be a major point of contention among customs lawyers, more than four years after it was issued (see 14091703). "There's a lot of uncertainty out there," said Michael Cone, a FisherBroyles lawyer, who moderated a March 8 panel on enforcement during the International Trade Update at the Georgetown University law school. Patricia McCarthy, assistant director for the Department of Justice commercial litigation branch, said despite the concerns within the trade, there remains a high bar for individual liability in Section 1592 cases.
A lawyer representing the American Institute for International Steel recapped the arguments he made when announcing a June 2018 lawsuit over the constitutionality of Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act (see 1806270036), while a lawyer representing the American Iron and Steel Institute said that while the importers may disagree with the policy of worldwide tariffs, that doesn't make it unconstitutional.
The Court of International Trade on March 5 rejected a Commerce Department scope ruling that found refrigerated merchandising and display structures are subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from China (A-570-914/C-570-915), sending it back down to Commerce for reconsideration. Stein Industries (dba Carlson Airflo) had argued its products, though steel and mostly rectangular, were not covered by AD/CV duties because, prior to importation, parts had been welded on perpendicularly, making the entire cross-section no longer rectangular. Stein also said that they are downstream products that the International Trade Commission had considered to be outside of scope. According to CIT, Commerce did not adequately address either argument in its May 2018 scope ruling (see 1807160041), remaining silent as to whether products that are not uniformly rectangular can be covered by the scope, and misconstruing Stein’s argument that the downstream products are exempt. CIT gave the agency until June 3 to file its redetermination.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 25 - March 3:
A freight forwarder locked in a legal battle with Nike continues to fight despite a July 2018 court ruling that found it liable for trademark infringement (see 1807200026). City Ocean Logistics is “exhausting all possible means of overturning” the New Jersey U.S. District Court’s order, “including seeking ‘an interlocutory appeal … in the event that its motion for reconsideration is denied in whole or in part,’” Nike said in a brief filed Feb. 27. That court order had found City Ocean and a customs broker, Eastern Ports, liable for trademark infringement related to shipments of counterfeit Nike sneakers for which they arranged entry and transportation. The court said the arrangement of transportation and creation of documents related to the shipments constituted the “use in commerce” of the trademarks under the Lanham Act, ordering Eastern Ports to pay $240,000 in damages. Nike now seeks to file an amended complaint and conduct discovery on the amount of damages it should receive from City Ocean.
No new lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 18-24.
The Court of International Trade on Feb. 15 issued a two-page order mandating the reliquidation of certain entries of festive articles imported by Russ Berrie that had been subject to a nearly three-decade-long tariff classification dispute. Appended to the order are several attachments listing the products and entries that are set to be reliquidated, either because of an August 2018 CIT decision that reclassified a few entries (see 1808310039), or because the government and Russ Berrie reached agreement before that decision that the goods should be classified in heading 9505.