The Court of International Trade is increasing its fees for filing cases. Effective May 1, the fee for filing challenges to protest denials under 28 USC 1581(a) will increase from $150 to $175, while the fee for filing Trade Adjustment Assistance challenges for workers under 28 USC 1581(d)(1) will rise from $25 to $35. Fees for all other actions, including challenges to International Trade Administration determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty cases, will increase from $350 to $400.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed CBP’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification of Kahrs International’s engineered wood flooring as plywood, rather than parquet panels or builder’s joinery. The Court of International Trade had originally sustained CBP’s classification in 2009. Kahrs argued that its engineered wood flooring did not meet the commercial meaning of plywood. But CAFC said the commercial definition of a product is irrelevant for tariff provisions that describe products by name rather than use.

Delta Airlines filed suit against the Export-Import Bank April 3, alleging the Bank’s loans for aircraft exports to foreign airlines harm U.S. airlines and their employees. Filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the suit claims the billions of dollars in financing Ex-Im has given to airlines -- including national carriers in South Korea, Poland and Dubai -- allow those companies to recoup investment in new aircraft faster or reduce customer ticket prices. “Unsubsidized U.S. airlines will be forced to respond by reducing their prices and reducing or altogether eliminating their capacity to serve those routes where they compete with Bank-subsidized foreign airlines,” court documents said. Delta wants a federal judge to block Ex-Im approval of financial assistance -- more than $100 million in each case -- for those carriers purchasing so-called widebody aircraft. Hawaiian Airlines and the Airline Pilots Association are also plaintiffs in the case.

The Court of International Trade sustained the International Trade Administration’s application of total adverse facts available to Mukand, Ltd.’s antidumping duty rate, despite the company’s omission of only one piece of data, in the 2009-10 administrative review of stainless steel bar from India (A-533-810). Mukand had declined to provide information on cost differences between producing stainless steel bar of various sizes, but had otherwise fully cooperated. CIT agreed with the ITA in its application of total AFA, finding that the requested information was so important to calculating Mukand’s AD rate that the rate could not have been accurately calculated without it.

The Court of International Trade denied Cutter & Buck’s challenge to CBP’s valuation of 168 entries of apparel. Cutter & Buck argued that CBP should have deducted international freight charges when arriving at the price actually paid or payable for the purpose of calculating transaction value. The shipments were subject to a late-delivery clause that shifted responsibility for shipping to the seller. Cutter & Buck said the clause also changed the terms of sale from free on board (FOB) to cost, insurance, and freight (CIF), so the cost of shipping was included in the invoice, and deductible, as a result of the late delivery. But the court found that there was no evidence to support Cutter & Buck’s claim that the invoice price included the international freight charges, so they could not be deducted.

The Court of International Trade remanded the final injury determination from the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of multilayered wood flooring from China, finding the International Trade Commission failed to account for the effect of the housing downturn and financial crisis on the domestic wood flooring industry. The court also found fault with the ITC’s refusal to include domestic hardwood plywood producers in its injury investigation, and its lack of explanation of whether imports from China were the “but-for” cause of injury.

The Court of International Trade denied the Wind Tower Trade Coalition’s request for preliminary injunction against liquidation of entries of merchandise subject to the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on utility scale wind towers from China and Vietnam, but made during the provisional measures period. The court had temporarily enjoined liquidation of the entries March 4, because of a pending challenge to the effective date of the AD/CV duty orders resulting from the investigations (see 13030820). Because of the injury vote in the investigations, the orders did not cover entries made between the preliminary determination and the AD/CV duty orders.

United Parcel Service will forfeit $40 million in payments from illegal online pharmacies as part of a non-prosecution agreement between the company and the U.S. Attorney Office for the Northern District of California, said the Drug Enforcement Agency in a press release. UPS must also implement a compliance program to make sure that online pharmacies can't use UPS services, the agreement said (here). According to the release, from 2003 through 2010 UPS was on notice that Internet pharmacies were using its services to distribute controlled substances and prescription drugs without valid prescriptions in violation of the law. "Despite being on notice that this activity was occurring, UPS did not implement procedures to close the shipping accounts of Internet pharmacies," it said.

The Court of International Trade granted the Diamond Sawblades Manufacturing Coalition’s request for a preliminary injunction to prevent liquidation of entries of diamond sawblades from China produced and/or exported by Advanced Technology & Materials Co., Ltd., but denied the coalition’s request for an injunction against revocation of the antidumping duty order for the company.

The Court of International Trade awarded a penalty of $9.94 million against Callanish, after CBP had tried and failed three times to punish the company for abetting importers of evening primrose oil in violation of Food and Drug Administration directives. The company had been in default since the first hearing of the case in 2009, but the court had taken issue first with CBP’s alleged violations, and then with the amount of penalty sought. Section 592 penalties can’t be set at more than the domestic value, but without a domestic market for the banned primrose oil, CBP had trouble ascertaining the correct amount. This time, CBP used the entered value, reasoning that the importer wouldn’t have sold it for less.