Dispute panels at the World Trade Organization released panel reports April 17 in cases brought by the EU, Taiwan and Japan and dealing with India's tariff treatment on certain goods in the information and communications technology sector, the WTO announced. In all three cases, the dispute panels found India's duties violated its WTO tariff commitments under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Article II of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Shipping giant MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. and others caused more than $182,000 in losses to logistics firm C.H. Robinson by mishandling five containers of grapes from Chile, C.H. Robinson said in an April 12 complaint filed in a Pennsylvania district court. The firm said MSC and marine terminal handlers Greenwich Terminals, Gloucester Terminals and Holt Logistics failed to impose "adequate procedures and fumigation facilities" to promptly fumigate the grapes (C.H. Robinson Co. v. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co., E.D. Pa. # 2:23-01384).
The Commerce Department illegally deducted Section 301 China tariff duties from exporter Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co.'s U.S. price in the 2020-21 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China, Fufeng argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. Fufeng added in its seven-count complaint that Commerce improperly decided to directly value energy factors of production in its normal value calculation based on a revision of Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad's preliminary financial ratio calculations (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00068).
The Commerce Department should have considered alternatives to account for an antidumping duty respondent's distorted costs even when faced with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit precedent barring particular market situation adjustments to the sales-below-cost test, Ellwood City Forge argued in comments at the Court of International Trade. One alternative would have been for Commerce to adjust for the PMS under the sales-below-cost test because the relevant exporter's records don't accurately reflect the exporter's costs, the brief said (Ellwood City Forge Co. v. United States, CIT # 21-00077).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 14 confirmed that a three-judge special committee is looking into a complaint against Judge Pauline Newman's ability to continue serving on the court. Judge Kimberly Moore brought the complaint against Newman, 95, after alleging probable cause she carried out "conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts" and is unable to perform her duties due to a "mental or physical disability."
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
A recent False Claims Act case brought over unpaid marking duties on imports of Mifeprex, the active ingredient for the abortion pill mifepristone, was filed by the Life Legal Defense Foundation in a bid to "take some gold out of Egypt," the foundation's lawyer Catherine Short told Trade Law Daily. "This company is making drugs that kill babies, and we were able to cut away some of their profit from that," Short said.
Federal Circuit Says Exporter Owned by Labor Union Didn't Rebut Presumption of Chinese State Control
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 14 upheld the Commerce Department's finding that antidumping duty respondent Zhejiang Machinery Import & Export Corp. (ZMC) did not rebut the presumption of Chinese state government control, barring its claim to a separate rate in an AD review. Judges Sharon Prost, Jimmie Reyna and Todd Hughes ruled the decision was reasonable because a labor union, which is subject to Chinese government control, is the majority shareholder of ZMC "and has overlapping membership with the employee stock-ownership committee" (ESOC).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade: