Court of International Trade Judge Jane Restani granted a motion from Beverly Hills watchmaker Ildico to consolidate two cases filed by the watchmaker in May, according to a June 23 ruling (Ildico Inc. v. U.S., #18-00076, -00136). The complaints argue that Ildico's imported wristwatches with gold bezels and cases and synthetic sapphires should be classified as duty-free "wrist watches with precious metal cases" of heading 9101, rather than as "other wristwatches" under subheading 9102 as classified by CBP (see 2204290030).
Plaintiffs in an Enforce and Protect Act case and the U.S. filed a joint motion for judgment after CBP said in remand results at the Court of International Trade that it no longer believes importers Global Aluminum Distributor and Hialeah Aluminum Supply evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. In the joint motion, counsel for Global Aluminum, Hialeah, the U.S. and Dominican exporter Kingtom Aluminio said that the court should sustain the remand results since no party contests CBP's position. In the remand results, CBP took another look at the record and said that it cannot conclude that evasion took place (see 2206150047) (Global Aluminum Distributor v. United States, CIT #21-00198).
A remand where the Commerce Department reviews a particular issue is a new agency action and renders moot any arguments that a party did not exhaust its administrative remedies prior to the remand, said plaintiffs in an antidumping duty case, led by Ellwood City Forge Co., in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade on June 17. As such, the plaintiffs' arguments as to the agency's procedural obligations relating to on-site verification made during the remand proceeding were properly exhausted, the brief, recently made public, said (Ellwood City Forge Company v. U.S., CIT Consol. #21-00007).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The International Trade Commission correctly found domestic industry was injured by imported mattresses in a set of antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, the commission said in a June 13 brief filed at the Court of International Trade. Despite arguments that the ITC failed to account for differences between mattresses-in-a-box and flat-pack mattresses, the commission said that it reasonably found the market segments interchangeable in AD/CVD investigations on mattresses from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam (CVB, Inc. v. U.S., CIT #21-00288).
The Commerce Department improperly deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from antidumping respondent Nippon Steel's U.S. price in an antidumping review, non-selected company Tokyo Steel Manufacturing said in a June 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Further, the agency erred by increasing the total cost of manufacturing to account for Nippon Steel's purchases of iron ore from its affiliated suppliers, the brief said (Tokyo Steel Manufacturing v. U.S., CIT #22-00180).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department has failed to address the flaws found in the use of the Cohen's d test when using its differential pricing analysis (DPA) to detect "masked" dumping, exporter SeAH Steel Corp. argued in a reply brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to the U.S.'s argument that SeAH has failed to point to any statistical texts that explicitly address Commerce's claim that it can properly use the test, the exporter said that the burden is on the agency to find supportive texts and not merely rely on the silence of statistical authorities (Stupp Corp. v. United States, CIT #15-00334).
Amazon and Cartier filed two cases in a Washington state district court on June 15 accusing a Chinese influencer and a spate of Chinese companies of selling knock-off Cartier jewelry on Amazon's website. According to the one of the complaints filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, a Handan, China-based woman used social media sites like Instagram to sell knockoff Cartier jewelry such as bracelets marketed as "Love bracelets." The influencer goes by the username "Phmn9y3v."
CBP reasonably denied customs broker test taker Shuzhen Zhong credit for two questions on the customs broker license exam, the U.S. argued in a June 17 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. In the brief, DOJ discussed the two questions at issue, defending CBP's rulings on the classification of glazed ceramic mosaic cubes and how to obtain relief from CBP's detention of a shipment of 1,000 handbags bearing a mark that copies but is not identical to a registered and recorded mark (Shuzhen Zhong v. United States, CIT #22-00041).