The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction for Chinese big data processing technology company Luokung Technology Corp., temporarily blocking the company's designation as a Chinese military company. Judge Rudolph Contreras issued the injunction in a May 5 ruling, finding it likely Luokung would prevail in its case against the designation. The publicly traded Chinese tech giant claims that the Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC) designation issued by the Department of Defense was made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, was arbitrary and capricious, and that the evidence in hand was not substantial enough to support a finding of state control over the company.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's second remand results that scrapped the adverse facts available rate in a countervailing duty case, in a May 6 opinion. Judge Richard Eaton found that Commerce's eventual decision to ditch the AFA subsidy rate relating to alleged benefits that exporter Heze Huayi Chemical Co. received from China's Export Buyer's Credit Program was consistent with prior remand instructions. Plaintiffs Clearon and Occidental Chemical initially filed the challenge, claiming that the AFA rate for Heze relating to the EBCP was too low and inconsistent with prior Commerce practice.
The Court of International Trade will allow a customs broker test-taker to proceed with a challenge to his failing grade, denying a motion to dismiss from the government that argued his case didn’t meet procedural requirements. Byungmin Chae’s delay in appealing to the trade court was caused in part by CBP’s own misleading statements, and his early missteps in the case before hiring a lawyer should not bar him from a hearing in court, CIT said in a decision May 7.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Canadian botanical goods exporter Second Nature Designs reached an agreement with the Department of Justice on 835 product styles that fall within the Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading under dispute in a customs case brought by the importer in the Court of International Trade. According to a May 5 joint status report, the two parties agreed to the product styles under HTS subheading 0604.90.3000 for "foliage, branches and other parts of plants, without flowers or flower buds, and grasses, mosses and lichens, being goods of a kind suitable for bouquets or for ornamental purposes, fresh, dried, dyed, bleached, impregnated or otherwise prepared: Other: dried or bleached," but the sides have more styles in dispute.
Despite hotly contested litigation in the lower court, the Justice Department has been notably absent from an appeal of an antidumping case initially brought by exporter Goodluck India Limited. During May 3 oral argument in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, counsel for a group of tubing producers appealing the case refused to speculate on the government's lack of participation in the case but did point out that the Commerce Department did file its remand determination under respectful protest in the initial Court of International Trade proceedings (Goodluck India Limited, v. U.S. et al., Fed. Cir. # 2020-2017).
Apparel importer Imperia Trading's statement of material facts is filled with statements devoid of evidence and thus contrary to the rules of the Court of International Trade, the Department of Justice argued in a May 5 motion to strike parts of Imperia's evidence from the record. While conceding such requests are rarely granted, DOJ asked the court to strike multiple paragraphs in the statement, saying they fail to cite any evidence, constitute legal arguments or conclusions of law, cite evidence that does not support the paragraph and rely on evidence containing untranslated foreign language.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department backed its decision to not collapse companies into a single entity in an antidumping case, according to a May 5 reply brief to the Court of International Trade in support of the agency's remand redetermination. In a final affirmative antidumping duty determination on stainless steel flanges from India, Commerce originally consolidated Echjay, Echjay Industries Private Limited, Echjay Forgins Industry Private Limited and Spire Industries Private Limited into one entity since they were all owned by the Doshi family in India. After a CIT remand, Commerce reversed course, finding substantial evidence, including decrees from the Bombay High Court, indicating a “familial and business separation” between the companies. In its reply, Commerce addressed opposition from petitioners to the remand redetermination, and included a detailed analysis of why the companies are not affiliated and thus do not warrant being collapsed into a single entity.
Following a key decision from the Court of International Trade striking down Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum "derivatives" (see 2104050049), steel nail importer Hilti filed a lawsuit of its own in the court seeking to reap the benefits. In a May 5 complaint, Hilti made several arguments similar to those in PrimeSource Building Products, Inc. v. United States, et al. Among other things, Hilti said the already struck-down Section 232 tariff expansion to include steel derivatives was improper because there was no underlying report from the Commerce Department (Hilti, Inc., v. U.S. et al., CIT # 21-00216).