HMTX Industries and Jasco Products, the initial filers of the Section 301 litigation seeking to vacate the lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings and get the duties refunded, strongly oppose the Department of Justice’s prolonged briefing format and schedule proposed Oct. 19 in a motion for case management procedures (see 2010200022), Akin Gump said in a response Oct. 22 at the Court of International Trade. Under the government’s proposal, the parties would not begin to argue the “merits of this dispute” before 2022 or beyond, it said. “Given the ongoing harms to thousands of plaintiffs, among others, that protracted schedule is unacceptable.”

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 12-18:

The Court of International Trade on Oct. 16 struck down a two-year-old Commerce Department scope ruling that found steel branch outlets used in fire protection system are subject to antidumping duties on carbon steel butt-weld pipe fittings from China (A-570-814). Commerce had in September 2018 found branch fittings imported by Vandewater covered by AD duties, even though they only have a single welded connection, and are threaded on the other end (see 1810160069). CIT found Commerce failed to adequately explain itself, relying mostly on a previous scope ruling that doesn’t fully address the issue, and sent the scope ruling back down to Commerce for a fuller analysis.

A Texas-based pipe importer is suing its customs lawyers for malpractice after their alleged failure to advise it to file protests cost it $6 million, according to a complaint filed Oct. 6 in Southern Texas U.S. District Court. Allied Fitting says Steptoe & Johnson, and more precisely its main point of contact Thomas Trendl and firm customs lead Gregory McCue, did not tell the importer that it had to protest the reliquidation of some of its entries that the Commerce Department had preliminarily found subject to AD duties during an anti-circumvention inquiry. When Commerce reversed course in its final determination and found no circumvention, the protest deadline had already passed, so Allied was unable to get any refunds for the reliquidated entries, the complaint said. Steptoe, Trendl and McCue were made aware of the reliquidations, but did not communicate any new advice based on that information, the complaint says. “We will be filing in due course our detailed answer responding to these unfounded claims,” Trendl and McCue said by email on Oct. 14.

The Section 301 tariff rulemakings typified the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's “unreasoned decision making” that’s “impermissible” under the Administrative Procedure Act, the Consumer Technology Association argued in September 2018 comments on List 3 of the tariffs (see 1809070025) that draw strong parallels to the HMTX-Jasco litigation challenging lists 3 and 4A tariffs. CTA used Akin Gump to help draft the comments two years ago. It was where CTA first floated the idea of challenging the tariffs in court. The complaint Akin Gump drafted for CTA (see 2009220029) that the association never followed through on is seen as a template for the HMTX-Jasco litigation now ongoing.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Oct. 5-11:

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Sept. 28-Oct. 4:

The Section 301 lawsuits represent an important check on the government's imposition of tariffs despite the recent claims of a domestic industry group, a customs lawyer told International Trade Today. An industry analyst with the Coalition for a Prosperous America, Kenneth Rapoza, had disparaged lawyers representing companies challenging lists 3 and 4 of the Section 301 tariffs (see 2009300004). “Importers and Exporters, Domestic Producers and the population at large have a right to expect proper federal enforcement of Trade Laws,” Simon Gluck lawyer Chris Kane said in an email that he also posted on LinkedIn Oct. 1. “Attorneys play an indispensable role in seeing that happens. In the last BIG case, attorneys protected the rights of U.S. Exporters, including the members of Mr. Rapoza’s employer, to retrospective refunds of and prospective dispensation from the Export Harbor Maintenance Tax all the way to U.S. Supreme Court and thereafter. That’s how it works in our legal system,” he said.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a domestic industry group that supports the Section 301 tariffs on China, complained about the “cadre of legal firms” suing the Trump administration over the tariffs on goods from lists 3 and 4 (see 2009210025). “The equivalent of tariff ambulance chasers” recruited the companies to file the lawsuits, Kenneth Rapoza, CPA industry analyst, said in a blog post Sept. 29. Rapoza specifically mentions Sandler Travis, which said in a recent client notice that there was still time to file similar challenges, and notes the role of Sandler Travis lawyer Lenny Feldman as the co-chair of CBP's Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee. The blog post also highlights Akin Gump, which filed the first lawsuit, for being the largest lobbying operation in Washington and representing Chinese telecom company ZTE Corporation. Sandler Travis didn't respond to a request for comment. Akin Gump declined to comment.

The Department of Justice motion for case management procedures to navigate the thousands of Section 301 tariff complaints before the Court of International Trade (see 2009240026) was “procedurally defective” because it wasn’t served on any other plaintiffs who filed cases involving the original HMTX Industries lawsuit, said an opposition Sept. 28 from Paulsen Vandevert, lawyer for importers GHSP and Brose North America. The more than 3,400 complaints seek to have the lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings vacated and the paid duties refunded. GHSP, a supplier of electromechanical systems to the automotive industry, and Brose, a distributor of mechatronic parts for motorized car seats, are in “full agreement” with DOJ that the many complaints will require case management procedures, Vandevert said. But his clients “strongly object” to designating the three “first-filed” complaints as test cases, he said.