The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of April 15-21 and April 22-28:
Kitchenware retailer Williams-Sonoma agreed to pay $3.2 million in civil penalties and "stop making false and misleading claims about the origins of its products," settling a lawsuit brought in a California court, DOJ announced. The agency alleged that Williams-Sonoma violated a Federal Trade Commission administrative order barring the company from advertising wholly imported goods and goods containing "significant imported content" as being "Made in the USA" (U.S. v. Williams-Sonoma, N.D. Cal. # 24-02396).
The Court of International Trade on April 24 sustained CBP's finding on remand that importer Columbia Aluminum Products didn't evade the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. But Judge Timothy Stanceu rejected Columbia's claim that CBP needed to immediately terminate the interim measures issued under the Enforce and Protect Act after reversing its original evasion finding.
Gzuniga Ltd., a luxury handbag seller, its founder Nancy Teresa Gonzalez de Barberi and Gonzalez's associate, Mauricio Giraldo, were sentenced to prison for illegally importing to the U.S. goods made from protected wildlife from Colombia, DOJ announced April 22.
China announced that it is "firmly opposed" to both the U.S. decision to open a new Section 301 investigation on allegedly unfair practices in China's maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors (see 2404170029) and President Joe Biden's call for a "tripling" of the existing Section 301 tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum (see 2404170040).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of April 8-14:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on April 12 ruled that Texas construction equipment distributor I Dig Texas didn't falsely represent its skid steer attachments as being made in the U.S. The court said the company's advertisements were ambiguous on whether the products' parts are all American-made or whether the goods themselves were assembled in the U.S. (I Dig Texas v. Kerry Creager, 10th Cir. # 23-5046).
The EPA on April 10 filed a complaint against California engine lubricant seller USA Wholesale for illegally importing hydrofluorocarbons via a New Mexico port in 2022, marking the first time the agency has filed such a complaint under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, the agency announced.
The Court of International Trade on April 10 rejected the preferred tariff classification of notebooks with calendars from both CBP and importer Blue Sky the Color of Imagination, slotting the products under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 4820.10.20.10 as "diaries." Judge Jane Restani explained that the court should prefer readings of the HTS that establish "conformity" across both the English and French translations of the Harmonized System.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of March 25-31 and April 1-7: