The U.S. arrested two U.S. citizens and two Chinese nationals last week after accusing them of using a purported Florida real estate firm, an Alabama distributor and nearly $4 million in wire transfers to buy and illegally export “cutting edge” chips to China.
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Mandi Rae Lumley, a member of the Yakama Native American tribe, dropped her lawsuit against the imposition of tariffs against herself and her company as a violation of the 1855 Yakama Treaty. On Nov. 20, Lumley's counsel, Rugged Law, a criminal justice firm in Portland, Oregon, filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon (Mandi Rae Lumley v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, D.Or. # 3:25-02003).
Steel plate exporters Hyundai Steel and Dongkuk Steel Mill filed a pair of reply briefs at the Court of International Trade on Nov. 20, contesting the Commerce Department's de facto specificity regarding South Korea's discounted off-peak electricity prices in the 2022 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from South Korea. Both companies contested Commerce's grouping of three unrelated industries to find that the steel industry received a disproportionate amount of the subsidy (Hyundai Steel v. United States, CIT Consol. # 24-00190).
The following lawsuits were filed recently at the Court of International Trade:
Importer USP Holdings on Nov. 20 voluntarily dismissed its case at the Court of International Trade regarding the applicability of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff exclusions. USP brought its case last month to contest CBP's denial of its protest claiming its steel entries were improperly denied Section 232 exclusions. Scott Johnston, counsel for USP, said in an email that the company ultimately received relief administratively after CBP agreed to void the denials. However, the case was initially filed, since the relief "came right at/after the 180-day period to challenge the Protest denials in the CIT." (USP Holdings v. United States, CIT # 25-00227).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Nov. 20 scheduled a case concerning deemed liquidation of duty drawback claims for oral argument on Jan. 8 (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).
Various importers sought to consolidate their cases against the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, all of which were filed after the Supreme Court held oral argument in the lead cases on the question. In all, the companies sought to consolidate 24 different cases on the IEEPA tariffs, all of which were brought by Crowell & Moring.
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's antidumping duty investigation on thermal paper from Germany after the parties challenging the proceeding withdrew their challenge following the trade court's decision last month in Domtar v. U.S.
Antidumping duty petitioner American Paper Plate Coalition on Nov. 20 pushed back against respondent Fuzhou Hengli Paper's bid to add an "Excel datafile" to the record in the respondent's case against the AD investigation on paper plates from China on the basis that the document was never properly presented to the Commerce Department in the investigation (Fuzhou Hengli Paper v. United States, CIT # 25-00064).