In the August 2007 - January 2008 new shipper review of certain frozen fish fillets from Vietnam, producer/exporter Hiep Thanh claimed it had no knowledge that certain sales it made to a Mexican purchaser would remain in the U.S. as consumption entries. Hiep Thanh therefore challenged the International Trade Administration's inclusion of the sales in the company's U.S. sales list and margin calculation. In two remands, the Court of International Trade faulted the ITA for “too many internal inconsistencies and unexplained conclusions,” ordering it to clarify its analysis and provide a definition for its use of the term "exportation."
Court of International Trade
The United States Court of International Trade is a federal court which has national jurisdiction over civil actions regarding the customs and international trade laws of the United States. The Court was established under Article III of the Constitution by the Customs Courts Act of 1980. The Court consists of nine judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is located in New York City. The Court has jurisdiction throughout the United States and has exclusive jurisdictional authority to decide civil action pertaining to international trade against the United States or entities representing the United States.
Domestic producers of honey, mushrooms, garlic and crawfish sued the U.S. government and multiple import sureties, citing both the failure of the U.S. trade agencies to collect, liquidate and distribute new shipper antidumping duties, and the failure of the sureties for Chinese food product shippers to require and fulfill sufficient bond guarantees. While the appeals court largely upheld a 2010 decision by the CIT dismissing all of the plaintiffs’ claims, the CAFC did overrule the lower court in concluding that the CIT’s jurisdiction could not extend to disputes between the domestic producers and sureties, as they are two non-governmental parties.
The Court of International Trade has ruled that Rack Room Shoes, SKIZ Imports LLC, and Forever 21, Inc., which had challenged the constitutionality of certain tariff provisions of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) on the grounds that the tariffs unconstitutionally discriminate by gender and age, did not plausibly demonstrate government intent to discriminate, dismissing the case with prejudice.
The Court of International Trade has denied the amount of CBP’s 1592 penalty against a corporation for fraudulently introducing entries of primrose oil capsules into the U.S., which, at the time of import, could not be lawfully imported. CBP stated the $17.7 million penalty amount was set at double the entered value of the merchandise; however, the court concluded that CBP did not follow its regulations in arriving at this figure, and ordered CBP to arrange for a new appraisal.
The Court of International Trade has ruled against U.S. Customs and Border Protection's claim that customs broker Robert E. Landweer & Co. was liable to pay a $30,000 penalty for filing entries with incorrect dumping duty deposit rates and incorrectly identifying the supplier of the merchandise. The CIT dismissed the case as CBP did not specify the customs regulations Landweer violated and therefore failed to sufficiently exhaust administrative remedies.
The Court of International Trade has upheld the determination by the International Trade Commission to deny the status of an “affected domestic producer” or ADP to Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. because in a 2003 questionnaire response, the firm expressed opposition to the AD petition on wooden bedroom furniture from China.
Domestic manufacturers grouped together in 2005 to file an antidumping duty petition against diamond sawblade imports from Korea and China, and later successfully challenged a determination by the International Trade Commission that their industry was not threatened with injury by such imports.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Camp (R-MI) has issued a statement welcoming the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to grant an extension for filing a rehearing request in the ongoing litigation about the application of the countervailing duty laws to non-market economies (NMEs) such as China. Camp stated that the Administration must pursue all available legal avenues to overturn the underlying decision, which he believes was wrongly decided.
Domestic furniture producers Ethan Allen Global, Inc. and Ethan Allen Operations, Inc. sued to gain a share of duties collected under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Act of 2000 (“Byrd Amendment,” or “CDSOA“), but the court dismissed their complaints.
U.S. Trade Representative Kirk and Commerce Secretary Bryson sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee warning that without new legislation, the International Trade Administration (ITA) will soon be forced to revoke its 24 existing countervailing duty (CVD) orders on imports from China and Vietnam and halt five similar pending investigations. The officials state that a legislative solution is needed to address the recent appeals court ruling against ITA’s five year old practice of imposing CVDs on subsidized imports from countries with non-market economies (NMEs) like China and Vietnam.