Zulaika Mayfield of San Francisco filed a class-action lawsuit against aluminum foil maker Reynolds Consumer Products accusing the company of falsely claiming its goods are "Made in U.S.A." Filing suit at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Mayfield said Reynolds' false representations violate California's Unfair Competition Law, False Advertising Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act (Zulaika Mayfield v. Reynolds Consumer Products, N.D. Cal. # 3:23-04587).
Both the government and defendant Crown Cork & Seal USA said they're experiencing delays in discovery in a fraud case against the importer, they said in a Sept. 8 joint status report. The case concerns metal can lid imports entered between 2004 and 2009 and valued at around $51 million. The government did not produce the requested 52 discovery requests by the Aug. 21 due date and Crown said it has experienced issues with third-party discovery relating to unaffiliated brokers (U.S. v. Crown Cork & Seal USA, CIT # 21-00361).
The Court of International Trade lacks jurisdiction to hear importer Greentech Energy Solution's claims challenging CBP's decision to assess antidumping and countervailing duties on its 2019 imports of solar modules from Vietnam, the U.S. said in a Sept. 7 motion to dismiss. The "protest procedure" at CIT and "judicial review" under Section 1581(a) are not "manifestly inadequate" to review Greentech's claims, barring review under Section 1581(i), the government said (Greentech Energy Solutions v. United States, CIT # 23-00118).
CBP will pay importer Marubeni-Itochu Steel America $494,902.80 to resolve the company's lawsuit, which said the agency failed to refund excess antidumping duty cash deposits. Per the Sept. 11 stipulated judgment, Marubeni will drop its claims against the government (Marubeni-Itochu Steel America v. U.S., CIT # 23-00004).
Importer Magid Glove & Safety Manufacturing and DOJ argued during oral arguments Sept. 7 whether a test established in a previous U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case meant that plastic-dipped knit gloves are correctly classified as articles of plastic rather than as gloves under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Magid Glove & Safety Manufacturing v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1793).
Canadian exporter Midwest-CBK asked the Court of International Trade to enter judgment against it in a case involving whether sales from a Canadian warehouse to U.S. customers are "sales for export to the U.S." or "domestic sales." Midwest said that over the course of the now six-year-old case, it ceased actively doing business and restructured itself, which has made complying with court orders to produce evidence impossible (Midwest-CBK, LLC v. U.S., CIT Consol. # 17-00154).
Exporters China Manufacturer Alliance and Double Coin Holdings will appeal a July Court of International Trade opinion upholding the Commerce Department's decision to assign Double Coin the 105.31% China-wide dumping rate in an administrative review of the AD order on off-the-road tires from China. Per the notice of appeal, the companies will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the case, the trade court said that the decision comports with the court's past decision finding that Double Coin did not rebut the presumption of Chinese state control over its export activities (see 2307200020) (China Manufacturers Alliance v. United States, CIT # 15-00124).
Chinese printer cartridge maker Ninestar Corp., along with eight of its Zhuhai-based subsidiaries, opposed the U.S.'s motion to extend the time to file a response to their request for a preliminary injunction in a case against their addition to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List. Ninestar said the government, in asking for a total of 62 more days, failed to show "good cause" for needing a delay to address "even one element of the preliminary injunction test" (Ninestar Corporation v. United States, CIT # 23-00182).
The U.S. and defendants led by importer Precision Cable Assemblies settled a False Claims Act case on allegedly underreported imports of wire harness assemblies. The suit was originally brought by Travis Grob, former vice president of operations at the Wisconsin-based Precision Cable Assemblies, as a qui tam action, giving Grob a cut of the settlement (United States v. Precision Cable Assemblies, E.D. Wis. # 22-00570).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: