The U.S. this week charged a Belorussian citizen with illegally exporting U.S. avionics and aircraft equipment to Russia, including for use by a company on the Entity List.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 4 granted importer Camel Energy's motion to expedite its case against CBP's detention of two of its battery entries. Judge Claire Kelly, who was assigned to the case on Oct. 29, granted the motion to expedite and said that Camel Energy "may file a proposed briefing schedule" along with a "brief statement of reasons as to why this expedited timeframe is necessary" by Nov. 5 at 4 p.m. ET (Camel Energy v. United States, CIT # 25-00230).
Battery importer Camel Energy urged the Court of International Trade on Oct. 29 to expedite its case on CBP's exclusion of two of its entries. The company said "good cause" exists to speed up the case, since the importer "continues to incur damages in port and storage fees" and the exclusion of the goods "prevented Camel’s North American customers from receiving their products" (Camel Energy v. United States, CIT # 25-00230).
CBP unlawfully excluded two entries of Camel Energy's battery imports for being made with forced labor in China's Xinjiang province, Camel Energy argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer said it's not on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, and the batteries in its entries weren't "mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part using forced labor in the" Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) (Camel Energy v. United States, CIT # 25-00230).
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.
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Exporter Camel Group filed its motion for judgment against the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's decision not to remove the company from the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, arguing that the decision wasn't backed by substantial evidence or supported by a reasoned explanation. Camel said FLETF used the wrong standard of review in assessing its petition for removal from the UFLPA Entity List, arguing that the task force should have used a "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of a "reasonable cause to believe" standard" (Camel Group v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
CBP failed to explain its finding that Dominican exporter Kingtom Aluminio made its aluminum extrusions with forced labor, the Court of International Trade held on Sept. 23. Vacating and remanding the forced labor finding, Judge Timothy Reif said the agency failed to "articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action” based on a “rational connection between the facts found and the choice made" in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act's arbitrary and capricious standard.
Chinese semiconductor company Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. accused the Bureau of Industry and Security of illegally withholding documents related to its placement on the Entity List, adding that the government acted on "inaccurate" information from YMTC competitors when it imposed stringent export license requirements on the company in 2022. The firm also questioned whether the End-User Review Committee, the interagency group that makes decisions on adding or removing companies from the Entity List, followed proper protocol when it voted to put YMTC on the list.
The Court of International Trade on Sept. 23 remanded CBP's finding that Dominican exporter Kingtom Aluminio made its aluminum extrusions using forced labor. Judge Timothy Reif held that CBP failed to "articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action" based on a "rational connection between the facts found and the choice made" in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Reif likened the case to the court's previous consideration of a company's challenge to its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List. The judge said CBP's "conclusory, unsupported allegations" of forced labor made with regards to Kingtom are "readily distinguishable" from the "substantive statements" made in defense of the UFLPA Entity List addition.