Chinese exporter Ninestar Corp. moved at the Court of International Trade to unseal and unredact the administrative record in its case against the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force's (FLETF) decision to add the company to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List. Ninestar said that while the trade court's recent order mandating disclosure to Ninestar's counsel of the government's evidentiary record marked some progress, the company's counsel said they remain "hobbled" since they can't share these materials with their client (Ninestar Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00182).
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit judges Alan Lourie, Kara Stoll and Tiffany Cunningham questioned both the position of the government and affected domestic producers in a Dec. 5 oral argument on whether CBP properly denied payouts of interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, on antidumping and countervailing duties under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (Adee Honey Farms v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2105) (Hilex Poly Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-2106).
The World Trade Organization and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Dec. 1 agreed to increase cooperation on various issues related to food and agricultural trade and climate change, the WTO announced. Heads of both organizations -- WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and FAO Director-General Qu Dognyu -- signed a "framework memorandum of understanding" at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) to "facilitate the organizations' close cooperation in these areas."
The U.K.'s Solicitors Regulation Authority fined British law firm Ashfords LLP about $128,000 for violating the country's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations. The U.K. said Ashfords, in helping a property investment company conduct a transaction, failed to discover or act on a potential link between the company and one of its sanctioned beneficial owners.
German company KingKong-Tools GmbH & Co KG, along with its American subsidiary King Kong Tools, will pay $1.9 million to resolve allegations of customs fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced. The office alleged that King Kong falsely said its tool imports were made in Germany when they were made in China, misrepresenting their country of origin in violation of the False Claims Act.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a Dec. 1 order stayed a customs fraud case against Zhe "John" Liu pending resolution of the ongoing criminal investigation of Liu. The civil case against Liu and importer GL Paper Distribution was filed at the trade court in July 2022, in which the U.S. alleged that Liu operated a scheme via a series of companies that imported steel wire hangers that were given false countries of origin. Liu allegedly created the companies for a transshipment scheme that involved sending wire hangers from China subject to antidumping and countervailing duties through Malaysia, India and Thailand in a bid to disguise their origin (see 2303160050). Judge Jane Restani stayed the government's case against Liu and GL Paper, ordering the parties to file a joint status report April 1 (U.S. v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT # 22-00215).
The U.S. is "in the process of recommending settlement" in a case from steel importer NLMK Pennsylvania regarding the Commerce Department's refusal to grant it exclusions for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, the government and NLMK said in a joint status report at the Court of International Trade. The parties asked the court to allow them to file another joint status report in 30 days (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT # 21-00507).
The Commerce Department misapplied the four factors used in determining whether companies are de facto controlled by a foreign government in finding exporter Guizhou Tyre was controlled by the Chinese state in the antidumping duty investigation on truck and bus tires from China, the exporter argued. Filing its opening brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Guizhou Tyre said that Commerce improperly used its government control analysis for firms majority owned by a state-owned enterprise in finding it failed to rebut the presumption of state control, since the exporter is only minority owned by an SOE (Guizhou Tyre Co. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-2165).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Dec. 4 again ruled against Commerce's use of a particular market situation adjustment to the sales-below-cost test in antidumping duty cases.