The Court of Appeals docketed Since Hardware (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd.’s appeal of the Court of International Trade’s rulings in Home Products International, Inc. v. United States. Since Hardware, defendant-intervenor in the case, filed the appeal on Aug. 10 concerning three CIT rulings in January, May, and June. At issue were surrogate values calculated for Since Hardware’s imports in the International Trade Administration’s 2007-08 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on floor-standing, metal-top ironing tables and certain parts thereof (A-570-888). CIT remanded the final results in January, and sustained the resulting remand determination in June.

The International Longshore & Warehouse Union filed suit in U.S. District Court, Portland, Ore., against the Port of Portland and Bill Wyatt, its executive director, saying they unlawfully gave nearly $5 million in public funds to ICTSI Oregon, Inc., a subsidiary of the private Philippines-based company International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI), and tens of thousands more to ocean carriers. The suit seeks an injunction against the expenditures.

An Italian shipping company and one of its ship chief engineers were sentenced in U.S. District Court, Mobile, Ala., for deliberately falsifying records to conceal discharges of oily wastewater from the ship directly into the sea, the Justice Department said. Giusseppe Bottiglieri Shipping Company was sentenced by Judge Ginny Granade to pay a $1 million criminal fine, serve four years of probation, and make a $300,000 community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The company must also fund and implement a comprehensive environmental compliance plan during the term of probation. Chief Engineer Vito La Forgia was sentenced by Judge Granade to one month in jail. The company pleaded guilty July 11 to failing to properly maintain an oil record book as required by federal and international law. Vito La Forgia, the ship's chief engineer, pleaded guilty July 12 to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.

The Court of International Trade affirmed the International Trade Commission’s final negative determinations in the second sunset reviews of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hot-rolled flat-rolled carbon-quality steel products from Brazil and Japan, which resulted in revocation of the AD and CV suspension agreements for Brazil (A-351-828 / C-351-829) and the AD order for Japan (A-588-846). The domestic plaintiffs contested nearly every element of the ITC’s analysis, including the ITC’s decision not to cumulate the volume and effect of subject imports between the countries subject to the sunset review (which included Brazil, Japan and Russia), the likely volume and price effects of imports if the agreements and order were revoked, the vulnerability of domestic industry, and the likelihood of adverse impact, but CIT said the ITC’s determinations in each of these analyses were supported by substantial evidence. As such, CIT deferred to the ITC, and dismissed the challenge.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court of International Trade’s 2011 ruling against Shell’s duty drawback claims for Harbor Maintenance Tax and Environmental Tax payments. In June 2011, CIT said the claims were time barred because duty drawback claims may only be filed within the three years after exporting the substitute merchandise. Shell had filed duty drawback claims in 1995 and 1996, within the three-year window, but its claims only requested drawback on import duties, and not on the HMT and ET payments. Shell didn’t file new duty drawback claims for HMT and ET payments during the six-month grace period for untimely drawback claims offered by Congress’ 1999 amendments to the drawback statute, either.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement reported another seizure of drugs from a vessel arriving at the Port of Norfolk. The seizure of two kilograms each of cocaine and heroin, concealed in the ceiling of a bathroom on the vessel, comes on the heels of the report last week that a joint task force had seized about 35 kilograms of cocaine at the Port of Norfolk in separate drug smuggling ventures. On July 27, the task force seized 32 kilograms of cocaine off of a vessel arriving into the Port of Norfolk, ICE said. On Aug. 4, the task force seized three kilograms of cocaine from a container vessel that was due into Hampton Roads. No arrests have been made and no crew members are suspected of being involved, ICE said.

The Court of International Trade dismissed Hartford Fire Insurance Company’s attempt to void or discharge bonds securing duties on entries made by an importer that violated U.S. import laws. The bonds at issue secured duties on entries subject to the antidumping duty order on frozen cooked crawfish tailmeat from China (A-570-848). Sunline, the importer, failed to pay the duties owed, and CBP made a demand on Hartford for payment on eight single entry bonds. But Hartford said, among other things, that CBP should have told it that Sunline was under investigation at the time, and that CBP’s silence constituted misrepresentation that voided the bonds. CIT said CBP was not required to disclose the investigation, and the decision to allow bonds in lieu of cash deposits was at CBP’s discretion. Because Hartford did not claim that CBP abused this discretion, CIT dismissed Hartford’s claim without prejudice. CIT also dismissed three other claims, two with prejudice.

A Puerto Rican man faces up to 10 years in prison after being found guilty by a jury on federal charges stemming from his role as a key operative for a drug ring that distributed large quantities of Chinese-made counterfeit pharmaceuticals throughout the U.S. and worldwide, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Francis Ortiz Gonzalez was convicted on one count of conspiracy and seven counts of trafficking in counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The indictment alleges Ortiz Gonzalez acted as U.S.-based distributor for a criminal enterprise, allegedly headed by Bo Jiang, a Chinese national whose last known residence is New Zealand. In January 2011, Jiang was taken into custody on a provisional arrest warrant by authorities in New Zealand, ICE said, but fled shortly after being released on bond.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court of International Trade’s February 2011 decision against a customs broker that sought to compel CBP to issue a ruling on its protests. In its decision, CIT had said customs broker Norman G. Jensen still had an administrative remedy in the form of accelerated disposition to force a protest ruling, so CIT had no subject matter jurisdiction for lack of exhaustion. CAFC agreed with CIT, saying Jensen should have requested an accelerated disposition of the protest with CBP and filed suit under 28 USC 1581(a) should the protest have been deemed denied, rather than filing suit under 28 USC 1581(i) before the protest was decided.

Voidance requests do not extend the 180-day deadline for challenging CBP protest denials at the Court of International Trade, said CIT in its dismissal of plaintiff Sears Holdings Management’s customs classification challenge. Sears had filed a request with CBP to void denial of its classification protest, which was denied, and a protest of CBP’s denial of its voidance request, which CBP rejected on the grounds that voidance requests are not protestable. Sears then filed suit at CIT within the 180-day period after its voidance request protest was rejected, but more than 180 days after its original protest was denied. In its decision, CIT said it has no jurisdiction over the matter because (1) voidance requests do not extend the 180-day deadline for challenges of CBP protests, so Sears’ challenge of the original protest denial was untimely filed; and (2) denials of voidance requests are non-reviewable agency actions which cannot themselves be challenged at CIT. Therefore, CIT dismissed Sears’ challenge.