Target Corporation was denied the chance to appeal a Court of International Trade decision on the antidumping duty rate for ironing tables from China that the retailer imports. In a Feb. 16 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said that the company has no right to appeal because it wasn't part of the original case and that it is not appealing CIT's original decision to deny Target the right to intervene in the original case.
The Department of Justice and the City and County of San Francisco reached a settlement allowing the U.S. to return two Thai lintels to their country of origin. The Feb. 10 settlement, announced in a news release, resolved ongoing litigation between San Francisco and the U.S. that began in October 2020 when the consul general of the Thai consulate in Los Angeles saw the religious relics at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum and inquired about their origin (see 2010280020). It is believed the lintels were exported from Thailand more than 50 years ago in violation of Thai law and were subsequently donated to San Francisco, where they remained on display at the museum. The lintels will be returned to Thailand under DOJ's victim remission program and placed on exhibition in Thailand, the release said.
The Court of International Trade will use a “master case” to reduce the time and expense of duplicate filings in the more than 3,700 lawsuits against President Donald Trump's lists 3 and 4A Section 301 China tariffs, CIT Judge Mark Barnett said in a Feb. 10 order. Barnett also gave the government defense until March 12, 2021, to submit its first defense, barring no motions to extend time to file. These procedural steps pertain to the copious number of Section 301 cases that were assigned to a three-panel judge at CIT on Feb. 5 (see 2102050008).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb.1-7:
The Commerce Department did not provide enough assistance to three exporters of Indian shrimp as required by law during antidumping duty administrative reviews, the Court of International Trade said in a Jan. 3 decision. During a review of frozen warmwater shrimp from India, Indian exporters Calcutta Seafoods, Bay Seafood and Elque & Co. were not granted sufficient help after requesting it from the Commerce, CIT said, ordering Commerce to reconsider the antidumping rates it placed on the three companies' shrimp imports, with specific instructions to reopen the administrative review to further help the importers provide adequate information for the review.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 25-31:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 18-24:
Robert Lighthizer’s departure as U.S. trade representative with the passing of the Trump administration spawned the first Section 301 complaint among many inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade to bring suit against his former agency instead of Lighthizer himself. Wacom Technology, an importer of digital pen displays for creative artists, alleged like thousands of others that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative overstepped its authority when it imposed the lists 3 and 4A tariffs on Chinese imports, and seeks to have the tariffs vacated and the money refunded. “Now-former Ambassador Lighthizer made numerous decisions regarding List 3 and List 4,” Wacom said Jan. 25. “At the time of filing this complaint,” Lighthizer “no longer held the position” of USTR, and hasn’t been replaced, it said. “The actions at issue in this complaint were and are being performed in the official capacity” of Lighthizer’s former agency, it said.
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 21 ruled that Midwest Fastener's strike pin anchors are not nails, and are not subject to antidumping duties on steel nails from China. After a series of decisions wherein CIT told Commerce to reconsider its scope ruling that the strike pin anchors are subject to AD duties, the trade court ruled that an Aug. 28 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision in a related case answers the question of scope coverage definitively, holding masonry anchors from OMG aren't nails and can't be covered by an identical AD duty order on steel nails from Vietnam (see 2008280039). In light of that definitive decision, CIT departed from its earlier decisions that held the scope's coverage of masonry anchors ambiguous, and directed Commerce to perform a more thorough analysis. “Commerce should now make its determination in accordance with the Court of Appeals’” holding, CIT said, giving the agency 60 days to submit its remand redetermination.
A Texas federal court on Jan. 21 dismissed a $6 million legal malpractice suit brought against two trade lawyers at Steptoe & Johnson, holding it lacked jurisdiction over the case. Thomas Trendl and Gregory McCue had been accused by Allied Fitting of failing to advise it to file protests to maintain its eligibility for refunds on its steel imports (see 2010140049), but Southern Texas U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt ruled that the suit covered activities in Washington, not Texas.