The Commerce Department must further explain its departure from the expected method in calculating the non-individually examined respondents rate in an antidumping review, the Court of International Trade said in an July 30 opinion made public on Aug. 6. Chief Judge Mark Barnett, issuing his third opinion in the case, partially remanded the case yet again, but did sustain Commerce's corroboration of the petition rate for mandatory respondent Unicatch based on individual transactions.

Aluminum extrusion producer Kingtom Aluminio requested to intervene in a Court of International Trade case over an antidumping duty evasion investigation that found it transshipped aluminum extrusions from China through the Dominican Republic to skirt the duties. A previous request was denied by Judge Richard Eaton (see 2106210059). Undeterred, Kingtom filed a motion for reconsideration in the court. Eaton permitted the producer on Aug. 5 to support its motion with an affidavit by individuals who can speak to Kingtom's interests in the case along with a brief, with a maximum of 10 pages, to explain how this affidavit satisfies the requirement for intervention (Global Aluminum Distributor LLC v. United States, CIT #21-00198).

The Mexican government launched a lawsuit on Aug. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against 10 gun manufacturers for their role in the spread of firearms in their nation. In a fiery complaint, Mexico decried the actions of the manufacturers who "design, market, distribute, and sell guns in ways they know routinely arm the drug cartels in Mexico." Through the use of corrupt gun dealers and illegal sales practices, these gun makers traffick weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border and cause countless death, destruction and economic harm, Mexico said.

A complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan challenging the seizure of CBD and hemp accessories as "drug paraphernalia" should be scrapped since the importer did not exhaust administrative remedies before challenging the seizure, the Department of Justice argued in an Aug. 2 motion to dismiss. The case, brought by Michigan-based vaporizer, rolling paper and pipe importer ASHH, pushed for the return of the CBD and hemp goods under Rule 41(g) -- a legal authority CBP said the district court didn't have, per U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit precedent (ASHH, Inc. v. United States, E.D. Mich. #21-11210).

The Trump administration’s “radical escalation” of Section 301 tariffs on lists 3 and 4A Chinese goods “transgressed the statutory limits carefully delineated by Congress” when it crafted the 1974 Trade Act and delegated foreign-trade powers to the executive branch, Akin Gump lawyers for sample case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products said. This came in a cross-motion for judgment on the agency record filed the evening of Aug. 2 at the Court of International Trade in docket 1:21-cv-52. Akin Gump’s proposed order asks that the lists 3 and 4A tariffs be vacated, that any duties paid be refunded with interest and that the government be “permanently enjoined” from imposing the tariffs again.

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The Court of International Trade postponed for two weeks an Aug. 6 deadline for CBP to create the repository through which Section 301 importers can seek to freeze liquidations of customs entries from China with lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure under the court's July 6 preliminary injunction (PI) order. Judge Claire Kelly told a status conference Aug. 2 that the court also is postponing for two weeks the Aug. 6 deadline for plaintiffs and the government to propose modifications to the PI order.

The U.S. requested the chance to take another look at an Enforce and Protect Act investigation to consider documents that were not sent from one CBP office to another, in a July 30 motion for remand in the Court of International Trade. The agency also sought the remand in light of the court's decision in Royal Brush v. United States, in which CIT held that CBP failed to provide adequate public summaries of business confidential information (BCI) (see 2012020050). The plaintiff in the case, Leco Supply, opposed the remand request, arguing that it is "too broad to be justifiable" under the court's standards for allowing remands (Leco Supply, Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00136).

Importers seeking suspended liquidations of customs entries from China with Section 301 lists 3 and 4A tariff exposure under the July 6 preliminary injunction (PI) order of the Court of International Trade would need to file their requests in a “repository” to be set up in CBP's ACE database and back them up with emails to their appropriate CBP Center of Excellence and Expertise (CEE), say draft DOJ instructions filed with the court Friday in docket 1:21-cv-52. “We have conferred with plaintiffs and understand that they will respond separately with their responses to these draft instructions,” DOJ attorneys said. Akin Gump lawyers for sample case plaintiffs HMTX Industries and Jasco Products didn’t immediately comment. Lawyers on the plaintiffs' steering committee may repeat many of the same objections they raised at a July 23 status conference that the government, in complying with the PI order to suspend liquidations, is putting too much onus on importers for CBP's processing of their liquidation-suspension requests.

In one of his first actions as a CIT judge, Chief Judge Mark Barnett was handed a case reassigned from one of the court’s senior judges at the time, Judge R. Kenton Musgrave. The case, involving a duty drawback claim from BP Oil Supply Company, was filed in July 2004 and had languished in the court for years. Lengthy briefing schedules and a million motions to extend later, it had been nearly a decade since the initial complaint had been filed.