The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 12-18:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 5-11:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 28 - Dec. 4:
References to “Pignolia” in the tariff schedule include only nuts of the Pinus pinea tree, the Court of International Trade said in a decision issued Dec. 2 (here). Other kinds of pine nuts, including seeds of the Pinus koraiensis tree imported by Specialty Commodities, are not classifiable as pignolia in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, CIT said.
Oil country tubular goods manufactured in Indonesia using Chinese green tubes as an input are not subject to antidumping duties on oil country tubular goods from China, the Court of International Trade said (here) as it sustained a Commerce Department scope ruling. Commerce had originally ruled the Indonesian finishing operations do not substantially transform the goods, saying they remain subject to duties on OCTG from China (see 14021124). However, the court found that logic to be unjustified in previous court rulings, and Commerce in its redetermination found that nothing in the scope of the China OCTG order covers OCTG from third countries. CIT also sustained Commerce’s decision that the OCTG from Indonesia are not circumventing AD duties because the finishing process in Indonesia is not minor or insignificant.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 1 denied a Taiwanese exporter the chance to get a lower antidumping duty rate through an administrative review on solar products from Taiwan (here). Neo Solar Power had filed its request to participate in the review on March 3, 2016, several days after the deadline for requests for review on Feb. 29. It said the Commerce Department’s ACCESS system was down on Feb. 29, and a Taiwanese holiday that day meant it couldn’t mail a physical copy of the petition until March 3. Commerce said Neo Solar missed the deadline and declined to review the company, leaving it subject to the 19.5% all others rate. Neo Solar said the system outage and holiday were “extraordinary circumstances” and Commerce should give it a break. But CIT ruled that Neo Solar did not demonstrate that the system was out all day on Feb. 29, nor did its lawyer call the ACCESS help desk when it opened at 9:30 p.m. Taiwan time. The holiday was not unforeseen, so it wasn’t an extraordinary circumstance either, CIT ruled.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 21-27:
Huber agreed to pay more than $2 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging it misclassified its imports of pigment to avoid paying a higher tariff rate, according to documents unsealed by the Western North Carolina U.S. District Court. According to the False Claims Act complaint filed by the whistleblower -- John Dickson, chief executive officer of National Ford Chemical -- two companies now owned by Huber, Hostmann-Steinberg and Micro Inks, fraudulently obtained rulings from CBP that directed classification under a tariff subheading for printing ink. The pigment they were actually importing required further processing before being used as printing ink, a fact they did not convey to CBP, the complaint said. Printing ink is subject to a lower tariff rate. The companies also undervalued the merchandise, the settlement said. Huber did not admit to the allegations as part of the settlement. Under the agreement, Huber will pay $2 million to the government and $187,000 to the whistleblower. The court still has yet to accept the settlement and dismiss the case. The government, which chose to intervene in the case, said in a July filing that the issue of how much Dickson will receive in the settlement was still undecided. Dickson received nearly $8 million of a $45 million settlement with another ink company in 2012 resolving a False Claims Act case (see 12121804).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Nov. 22 vacated a safety standard issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on magnet sets (here), finding CPSC did not adequately address certain issues related to costs and benefits of the standard. The appeals court found the 2014 final rule that set the standard did not fully weigh injury risks and the public’s need for the magnet sets versus the rule’s effect on their utility and availability. The 10th Circuit had delayed enforcement of the safety standard in 2015 (see 1504060015), based on a complaint filed by the only remaining U.S. distributor, Zen Magnets. CPSC had increased enforcement efforts on magnets sets after finding they pose a risk to children that ingest them (see 12122017 and 14051419). The vacated standard now goes back to CPSC to give the agency a chance to address the issues raised by the appeals court.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 14-20: