The statute of limitations for collection of duties under a bond expires six years after the relevant entries are liquidated, surety Aegis Security Insurance Co. said in its response to a customs penalty complaint from the government. Aegis disputed the U.S. claim that the calculation of delinquency runs from the billing of the subject entry (U.S. v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT # 22-00327).
The Supreme Court of the U.S. denied a petition for a writ of certiorari in a broad challenge to President Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariff action under Section 232.
The Commerce Department committed a "clear legal error" by failing to follow the statute and its own prior practice by using acquisition prices paid by antidumping duty respondent Nexco as opposed to actual cost data from the beekeepers themselves for the cost of production in an AD investigation on raw honey from Argentina, Nexco argued in a March 24 reply brief. The respondent said there is nothing "pragmatic" about disregarding the actual costs of making the merchandise under review in favor of acquisition prices, as the government claims (Nexco v. U.S., CIT # 22-00203).
A Washington, D.C., court last week rejected a Russian citizen’s bid to dismiss government accusations that he misled investors about his company’s “key” space technology and several U.S. “adverse national security determinations” against the company. The ruling came after the Securities and Exchange Commission said Mikhail Kokorich, former CEO of space industry startup Momentus, made several “misrepresentations, false statements, and material omissions” in merger discussions with another firm, failing to disclose that the Commerce Department had rejected at least one of his company's export license applications and planned to deny another (SEC v. Mikhail Kokorich, D.D.C. # 21-1869).
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed a suit against the State Department concerning the regulation of 3D gun file exports, saying the claims are moot because the State Department shifted export control responsibility to the Commerce Department. Judge Robert Pitman dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, saying plaintiffs Defense Distributed and Second Amendment Foundation failed to show the State Department still regulated the exports. Pitman also ruled that Defense Distributed's claim for monetary damages against the State Department belongs "to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims."
No lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade.
The Court of International Trade stayed proceedings in a customs penalty case for another three months to allow the U.S. and defendants, led by Chu-Chiang "Kevin" Ho, to "finalize resolution of the matters." Judge Timothy Reif gave the parties until June 22 to either settle the case or file a joint status report. The U.S. seeks penalties due to fraud totalling over $2.9 million from Ho, Wintis Corp., Ship Communications, Aelis Nova and Maderdove. The government said Ho knowingly misclassified headlight conversion kits resulting in a duty underpayment (U.S. v. Chu-Chiang "Kevin" Ho, CIT # 19-00102).
The International Trade Commission's decision not to cumulate imports of cold-rolled steel from Brazil with the other countries under consideration in the five-year reviews of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on cold-rolled steel flat products "was clearly inconsistent" with the Court of International Trade's past rulings on cumulation in sunset reviews, a group of U.S. companies argued (Cleveland-Cliffs v. United States, CIT # 22-00257).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Steel exporter SeAH Steel Corp. will appeal two February Court of International Trade decisions upholding the Commerce Department's use of the Cohen's d test as part of its differential pricing analysis to root out "masked" dumping, it said in two notices of appeal. The trade court had sustained the test, finding that the use of an entire population of data instead of a sample "sufficiently negates" the questions raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the 2021 Stupp Corp. v. U.S. decision (see 2302230056). One of the cases is the Stupp proceeding itself, in which the court ruled that Commerce adequately addressed the Federal Circuit's questions (see 2302270049) (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT # 19-00086) (Stupp Corp. v. Unied States, CIT # 15-00334).