The Court of International Trade should reject a request to temporarily stay an order barring the import of certain fish taken from New Zealand's West Coast North Island multispecies set-net and trawl fisheries, plaintiffs Sea Shepherd New Zealand and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society argued in a Dec. 12 reply brief. Harms the New Zealand fisheries will purportedly suffer absent a stay are "short-lived, overstated, and speculative," the brief said, but "[m]ore importantly, they pale in comparison to the ongoing risk posed to the Maui dolphin from set net and trawl fisheries that operate within the dolphins' range" (Sea Shepherd New Zealand v. United States, CIT #20-00112).
The U.S. Department of the Interior unreasonably delayed responding to a 2014 request to certify Mexico under the Pelly Amendments to the Fishermen's Protective Act of 1967 due to Mexico's failure to stop illegal fishing of and trade in endangered totoaba, an "imperiled fish," the Center for Biological Diversity, Animal Welfare Institute and Natural Resources Defense Council argued. In a suit filed Dec. 14 at the Court of International Trade, the conservation groups said the department and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to respond to the petition, and said the killing of the totoaba is aiding in the "imminent extinction of the vaquita porpoise" (Center for Biological Diversity v. Deb Haaland, CIT #22-00339).
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Commerce Department illegally used adverse facts available for exporter SeAH Steel Corp.'s alleged benefits under the Export-Import Bank of Korea's (KEXIM's) Performance Guarantee program, SeAH argued in a Dec. 13 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce improperly based its decision on its treatment of information related to the performance guarantee program presented at verification as "new factual information," the brief said (SeAH Steel Corp. v. United States, CIT #22-00338).
The Commerce Department withdrew exporter Jiangsu Guyu International Trading Co. as a mandatory respondent in a countervailing duty administrative review on remand at the Court of International Trade after reviewing CBP data the agency used in its respondent selection process. After it was ordered by the trade court to look into very large entry volumes, Commerce accepted the explanation that these entries would take an unrealistic number of containers. Due to this, the agency dropped these entries from its respondent selection process and found that Jiangsu Guyu is no longer one of the two exporters that ship the most volume of the subject merchandise. The result, if sustained, would be a 6% decrease in the CVD rate for the non-selected companies (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03885).
The Court of International Trade should dismiss a Section 592 penalty case against defendant Zhe "John" Liu since the statute of limitations has run out and the "action is untimely," Liu said in a Dec. 13 motion. The fraud case brought by the U.S. was not brought within five years from the date of the alleged violation because the defendant was not involved in the transaction at issue, as he was neither an owner, officer or director of GL Paper Distribution -- the company that committed the alleged fraud and a co-defendant in the action, the brief said. Liu also argued that the U.S. failed to state a claim against the defendant. As a result, Liu should be severed and dismissed from the case, the brief said (United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT #22-00215).
CBP failed to pay a refund of Section 301 duties to Sonos for imports of wireless speakers and audio components for which exclusions had been granted, the importer argued in a Dec. 9 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Due to this alleged failure, Sonos is seeking over $229,000 in refunds of the Section 301 duties paid (Sonos v. U.S., CIT #22-00337).
The only way importer Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply, could have properly challenged a CBP decision on its entries, according to the Court of International Trade, was to file a "[p]remature, overly broad, or indefinite" protest, SIS argued in a Dec. 6 supplemental brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. But these types of protests "do not constitute a proper basis for invoking CIT jurisdiction," the importer claimed, citing a prior Federal Circuit ruling (Acquisition 362 v. United States, Fed. Cir. #22-1161).
Importer Meyer Corp. in a Dec. 9 motion asked for a status conference on how to proceed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit remanded its suit over the use of first sale valuation. Since the U.S. failed to respond to Meyer's attempts at contact over a joint status conference request, the importer unliterally sent in the motion, outlining two possible ways forward in the case: court-annexed mediation and retrial, both of which could help "avoid an unwieldy and unnecessarily complicated proceeding" (Meyer Corp. v. U.S., CIT #13-00154).
The Court of International Trade in a Dec.12 opinion dismissed a suit from importer MS Solar Investments challenging the Commerce Department's liquidation instructions following an antidumping duty review for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said the case is based on an error affecting the final results of the review and not a mistake in the liquidation instructions. This means the case falls under Section 1581(c) and not Section 1581(i) -- the court's "residual" jurisidiction -- as claimed by the plaintiff.