The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Aug. 1-7:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 25-31:
The Court of International Trade in an Aug. 1 order granted a joint motion for stipulated judgment, granting refunds to importer Transpacific Steel for Section 232 steel and aluminum duties paid in error. The importer was originally granted three exclusions with the wrong Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading listed in them. After having its resubmitted exclusion requests denied, Transpacific took to the trade court to seek the exclusions and refunds for the Section 232 duties paid. It received just that following a settlement with the U.S. (Transpacific Steel v. United States, CIT #21-00362).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 18-24:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 11-17:
Importer and U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese manufacturing company, Wanxiang America Corp. is guilty of negligence by making false statements and omissions over its entries of wheel hub assemblies, radial ball and tapered roller bearings, and universal joints and their parts, the U.S. argued in a July 13 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Through its negligence, Wanxiang America avoided antidumping duties and customs duties on its entries, cheating the U.S. out of over $31 million in lost revenue, the U.S. said. DOJ filed its case to seek the lost duty payments along with a penalty (United States v. Wanxiang America Corporation, CIT #22-00205).
Florida-based importer Siboney Corporation violated the law by fraudulently avoiding paying Federal Excise Tax (FET) on 32 entries of large cigars, the U.S. argued in a July 12 complaint at the Court of International Trade. DOJ alleged that Siboney improperly calculated its amount of FET owed on the entries based on the sales price from the Nicaraguan exporter plus a 5% markup to a "fictitious" company, Blue Mountain Cigars, and an affiliated wholesaler, GAMATTSA (United States v. Siboney Corporation, CIT #22-00204).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of July 5-10:
The Court of International Trade in a July 12 opinion denied a motion from Kevin Ho, owner and director of importer Atria, to dismiss a penalty action for lack of personal jurisdiction. Judge Timothy Reif said that the U.S. properly identified the "who, what, when, where, and how" of Ho's alleged fraud over the alleged illegal importation of HID headlight conversion kits, so personal jurisdiction was established. However, Reif denied in part and granted in part Ho's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, holding that the U.S. made insufficient factual allegations on Ho's knowledge and intent to violate customs law based on fraud, but giving the U.S. the opportunity to amend its complaint.
Onur Aksoy, the CEO of multiple companies and a Miami resident, was indicted July 7 on charges of running a trafficking operation that imported fraudulent and counterfeit Cisco networking equipment worth over $1 billion, DOJ announced July 8. Aksoy ran at least 19 companies formed in New Jersey and Florida along with 15 Amazon storefronts, more than 10 eBay storefronts and various other entities that imported the counterfeit devices from China and Hong Kong, reselling them in the U.S. and abroad, falsely claiming that the goods were new. The scheme raked in over $100 million in revenue, DOJ said.