The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week said that an entity can only violate the Plant Protection Act and Animal Health Protection Act for aiding, abetting, causing or inducing the illicit import of plant and animal products by knowingly taking part in the import process (Amazon Services v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, D.C. Cir. # 22-1052).
The Court of International Trade denied Seko Customs Brokerage's bids for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against its temporary suspension from the Entry Type 86 Test and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs. Judge Claire Kelly found Seko already received all the relief it sought when it was conditionally reinstated into the programs and told why it was originally suspended.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of July 8-14 and 15-21:
The Court of International Trade on July 23 said CBP didn't have the authority to extend an order from the court enjoining liquidation of various entries to imports entered by Acquisition 362, doing business as Strategic Import Supply. Judge Mark Barnett dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, finding that because Acquisition 362 wasn't a party to a separate case challenging the antidumping duty rate assessed on the company's goods, it wasn't subject to the court's order suspending liquidation of various tire entries.
Minsu Fang, a Chinese national, was indicted for allegedly conspiring to import what the U.S. government believes to be "the largest amount of fentanyl precursors found in the Southern District of Texas and one of the largest in the country," DOJ announced July 22.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on July 22 reached a non-prosecution agreement with French bus parts supplier CBM, under which the company will pay a $1.5 million fine for lying about the source of bus parts supplied to "U.S. transit authority customers" from 2010 to 2021, the office announced.
The Supreme Court's recent decision eliminating the standard of deferring to federal agencies' interpretation of ambiguous statutes (see 2406280051) "will likely result in more litigation in the already heavily litigated world of international trade," two ArentFox Schiff partners said in a client alert.
Importers Yellow Bird and Vantage Point filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade July 18 arguing that a 1955 Jaguar race car, driven in competitions by multiple Australian racing drivers, is a collector's item, not a used motor vehicle (Yellowbird Enterprises v. U.S., CIT # 24-00121).
The Court of International Trade on July 18 sent back the Commerce Department's decision to include importer Elysium Tile's composite tile within the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on ceramic tile from China. Judge Jane Restani said the "complexity of Elysium's processes" shows that the company's tile underwent more than "minor processing," which would have kept the goods in the orders' scope.
The Commerce Department on July 12 released a proposed rule updating various aspects of its antidumping and countervailing duty regulations. The agency said the changes largely "codify existing procedures and methodologies" and also "create or revise" provisions related to the "collection of cash deposits," use of AD rates on nonmarket economy nations, calculation of an all-others' rate, respondent selection and "attribution of subsidies received by cross-owned input producers and utility providers to producers of subject merchandise."