The American Institute for International Steel and two companies asked the Court of International Trade on July 19 to immediately stop the enforcement of Section 232 tariffs, AIIS said in a news release. A summary judgment is necessary to prevent further monetary harm to steel importers, as well as "the port authorities, customs brokers, insurance companies, and logistics companies that are members of AIIS and that derive significant portions of their revenue from their handling of imported steel," AIIS said in its filing.
Recently imposed countervailing duties on new pneumatic off-the-road tires from Sri Lanka look set to end, after the Court of International Trade on July 11 sustained a redetermination by the Commerce Department. After taking out a program CIT found was not a subsidy, the CV duty rate for Camso Loadstar and the rate for all other Sri Lankan exporters fell to 1.23%, below the two percent threshold for imposing CV duty orders on developing countries under World Trade Organization rules. Commerce issued its CV duty order in March (see 1703030031).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 9-15:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 2-8:
The Court of International Trade has jurisdiction to hear government lawsuits to recover unpaid excise taxes even when no penalty is sought, it said in a pair of decisions issued July 3. CIT has exclusive purview over cases dealing with violations of 19 USC 1592, and though laws on CIT jurisdiction over those cases refer only to penalty cases and recovery of customs duties, the underlying law specifically allows CBP to seek recovery of duties, taxes and fees without collecting a penalty, CIT said. Federal excise taxes, which are collected at the time of importation and are a condition of release, “are customs duties for the purposes of jurisdiction,” the trade court said.
The owner and manager of a New Orleans-based freight forwarder were recently arrested for their part in a conspiracy to fix prices for international freight forwarding services, the Justice Department said in a July 3 press release. A complaint unsealed June 29 in Eastern Louisiana U.S. District Court alleges Roberto Dip, owner and CEO of the unnamed forwarder, and Jason Handal, its manager, schemed with other forwarders to raise prices on their U.S. customers for shipments to Honduras and elsewhere, beginning with a meeting held in Honduras in 2014.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 25 - July 1:
A CBP agricultural specialist is facing federal charges of falsifying ship inspection documents, according to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on June 21. Carl James is said to have "falsified" a PPQ Form 228 in 2015 and two AI-288s in 2017, indicating that he inspected the ships even though he had not, the indictment said. A CBP spokesman said James is no longer employed by the agency.
The American Institute for International Steel will announce on June 27 "the launch of a legal challenge that seeks to remedy a situation that is bad for the American economy and American workers alike," the group said in a June 26 news release. AIIS said "President Trump’s Section 232 tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have already created significant collateral damage for U.S. industries." The group called the coming legal action a "critically important, first-of-its-kind initiative."
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of June 18-24: