CIT Grants Exporter's Motion to Toss Case on Value of Goods From Canadian Warehouse

The Court of International Trade in an Oct. 20 opinion granted exporter Midwest-CBK's motion to ditch its case on whether sales from a Canadian warehouse to U.S. customers are sales for export to the U.S. or domestic sales. Following a prior CIT ruling finding that the company's imports are sales "for exportation to the United States" and that the goods were not deemed liquidated, the case shifted to how to value the goods.

Midwest-CBK told the court that it cannot offer evidence on the remaining issues given its business model and that it wants to pursue the original claim at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (see 2310110020). Complying with the court's request for evidence to determine a value based on the Free on Board prices for goods from Buffalo would involve analyzing tens or hundreds of millions of individual sales, the company said.

Midwest said it filed a customs entry for a truckload of merchandise arriving in Buffalo every day in 2013 and part of 2014, noting that each truck had goods meant for as many as 200 different U.S. customers. All of these customers were aggregated on the customs entry. Finding the "FOB Buffalo, New York" prices for the goods on a single truck "would entail analyzing each item in the 200 customer orders" -- an impossible task since the customers "were small retailers" and "each customer order tended to contain many different items," under different tariff classifications and price levels, the company said in its motion to dismiss.

Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves noted that Midwest-CBK intends to appeal the trade court's prior ruling. Seeing as an appeal will likely "reduce or eliminate the need for prolonged litigation," the judge granted the motion to dismiss.

(Midwest-CBK v. United States, Slip Op. 23-154, CIT # 17-00154, dated 10/20/23; Judge: Jennifer Choe-Groves; Attorneys: John Peterson of Neville Peterson for plaintiff Midwest-CBK; Monica Triana for defendant U.S. government)