The U.S and importer Target General Merchandise reached a settlement over the proper classification of girl's glitter/fabric ballet shoes, the parties said in a July 26 stipulation of dismissal. The Court of International Trade then order the case be dismissed without providing any details as to the settlement. Target launched its case in 2017, though the matter sat on the customs case management calendar for over four years. The ballet shoes were entered under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 6402.99.41 as oxford height footwear of the slip-on type, dutiable at 12.5%, though CBP liquidated them under subheading 6402.99.49, dutiable at 37.5%. Target, via its October 2021 complaint, laid out its case for the shoes to be classified under this first subheading (Target General Merchandise v. U.S., CIT #17-00007).

The Court of International Trade should reject the Commerce Department's continued use of the Cohen's d test following a remand order from the court, plaintiffs, led by Marmen Inc., argued in a July 22 brief at the trade court. Commerce has failed to explain whether limits on the use of the test to detect masked dumping were satisfied with respect to Marmen's data, the brief said. Further, Commerce's premise -- that certain statistical assumptions such as the normal distribution of the data need not apply where the data sets are populations and not samples -- is not supported by anything, including the academic literature, the brief said (Marmen Inc. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-00169).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

The Commerce Department's finding that the South Korean government does not subsidize the Korean steel industry through the sale of electricity below cost was illegal and gives foreign governments full control to cross-subsidize various industries, plaintiff Nucor Corp. argued in a July 26 brief at the Court of International Trade. Commerce has failed to lay out a legal or methodological justification for treating the "government price" as the revenues earned by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) on all sales to all firms, the brief said. By doing so, the agency did not look at the price actually paid by the respondent, meaning it has failed to assess whether a benefit was conferred, Nucor argued (Nucor Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00050).

Byungmin Chae, who is contesting results of his customs broker license exam, filed his informal reply brief July 25 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Court of International Trade had dismissed five exam questions Chae appealed (see 2206060055). At the trade court, Judge Timothy Reif said CBP was right to dismiss Chae's appeal of four of the questions but said the agency wrongly denied the test taker's appeal for the fifth question. The reversal of the remaining question wasn't sufficient for a passing grade because Chae was two questions shy of the 75% threshold needed to pass the test. In his informal reply brief to the Federal Circuit, Chae said he is appealing only three questions from the April 2018 customs broker license exam (Byungmin Chae v. Secretary of the Treasury, CIT #20-00316).

The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:

CBP's findings in its Enforce and Protect Act investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China were arbitrary and an abuse of discretion, Skyview Cabinet said in a July 18 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade. "Simply put, CBP failed in its investigation duty, believing that it was confronted with evidence of basic transshipments,” Skyview said (Skyview Cabinet USA v. United States, CIT #22-00080).

Eastern Pacific Chartering (22) (EPC22), a Singapore shipping company, alleged in a July 21 complaint at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware that Louis Dreyfus Company Freight Asia (LDCFA), a subsidiary of a Dutch merchant firm, violated its contract by damaging cargo. The suit would send LDCFA a nearly $3 million bill for breach of contract and cost of attorneys and related fees for an arbitration proceeding in London that kicked off due to the damaged cargo. ECP22 alleges that LDCFA's faulty stowage plan soiled the goods (Eastern Pacific Chartering (22) v. Louis Dreyfus Company Freight Asia, D. Del. #22-00958).

The Court of International Trade should deny a motion by Saha Thai Steel Pipe for judgement and sustain The Commerce Department's 2019-2020 administrative review of an antidumping duty order on welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, the government said in a July 15 opposition motion (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-00627).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate July 22 following its opinion ruling that the Commerce Department properly found that Shelter Forest International Acquisition's hardwood plywood exports didn't circumvent the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. In the June opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court of International Trade's opinion, finding that the merchandise was commercially available before Dec. 8, 2016, and was thus not later-developed merchandise that circumvented the AD/CVD orders (see 2206150032) (Shelter Forest International Acquisition Inc., et al. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. #21-2281).