The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 24-30:

Two Chinese citizens were sentenced to prison for a scheme to sell mislabeled dietary supplements, the Justice Department said in a news release. Zhang Xiao Dong, sales manager for Genabolix USA, was given 24 months in prison on Dec. 20 after pleading guilty in the Northern District of Texas to a count of mail fraud, the DOJ said. Gao Mei Fang, the supply chain manager for Genabolix, received a year and a day prison sentence in July, it said. "Zhang and Gao admitted that they agreed to help sell synthetic stimulant ingredients to a purported dietary supplement manufacturer in the United States," the DOJ said. "According to an indictment returned in October 2017, Zhang, Gao, and another co-defendant agreed with a confidential government informant to either mislabel the synthetic ingredients or to otherwise help hide the true nature of a proposed dietary supplement from retailers. Zhang and Gao admitted that they knew major American dietary supplement retailers would refuse to carry supplements known to contain certain stimulants, such as [amphetamine derivative 1,3-dimethylamylamine, also known as] DMAA. Gao also admitted to making false statements to FDA’s import division regarding a shipment of synthetic stimulants." Both were arrested in 2017 while at a dietary supplement trade show in Las Vegas.

Bonds covering antidumping duties were not retroactively declared invalid by a 2006 law that temporarily suspended the option to post bonds instead of cash deposits for goods subject to new shipper reviews, the Court of International Trade said in a Dec. 14 decision. Hartford Fire Insurance had argued it didn’t owe CBP uncollected duties on entries of fresh garlic from China because the Pension Protection Act, passed in August 2016, retroactively nullified existing bonds going back to April of that year. The trade court disagreed, finding the law’s retroactive application only barred importers from relying on new bonds instead of cash deposits for entries subject to new shipper reviews. Existing bonds issued before the law was enacted remained in effect, it said. “In sum, the PPA does not alter the status of bonds already lawfully filed with Customs, or the ability of Customs to collect against those bonds,” CIT said. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 has since permanently ended the bond option in new shipper reviews (see 1606070008).

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 17-23:

The Court of International Trade held oral arguments Dec. 19 in a case filed by steel importers alleging that Section 232 tariffs are unconstitutional (see 1806270036). The American Iron and Steel Institute, which filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit, put out a statement Dec. 19 that said: "We continue to strongly believe this case is without merit and the effort by importers of foreign steel to undermine the Section 232 relief through this case is bound to fail. Congress acted within its constitutional authority when it authorized the president to take action to adjust imports, when the Secretary of Commerce has determined that such imports threaten to impair the national security."

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 10-16:

A company and two individuals were charged over an alleged scheme to smuggle "purported dietary supplement ingredients" into the U.S., the Justice Department said in a recent news release. Bao Luu, Lynn Chau and Chau's company, Pure Assay Ingredients, are accused of deceiving Food and Drug Administration and CBP inspectors, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Two Chinese citizens were also charged, it said. The indictment alleged that the scheme used mislabeling of "certain stimulants and other questionable ingredients as non-controversial substances to evade government scrutiny during import," the DOJ said. It's also alleged "that the defendants sold the smuggled substances to dietary supplement manufacturers in the United States for use in consumer products. In one instance, the indictment contends that Chau and Luu assembled a false shipment to fool FDA into believing that Pure Assay destroyed substances the agency blocked from distribution. In reality, Pure Assay already had shipped out the real products and presented mislabeled substitutes for destruction."

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 3-9:

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Nov. 26 - Dec. 2:

The Court of International Trade on Nov. 29 declined to rule in favor of an importer facing nearly $3.5 million in penalties and unpaid duties based on allegations it fraudulently misclassified and undervalued entries of wearing apparel, sending the case to trial to decide whether the government missed the statute of limitations for customs penalty cases. Greenlight Organic denies the allegations, and also says the government filed its action more than five years after it purportedly found out about the violations. The government says it’s still within the five-year period of when it first obtained double-invoicing records from Greenlight. “More facts are needed to ascertain when the Government first had knowledge of Greenlight’s fraudulent misclassification and undervaluation activities, including when the Government began to suspect a potential double-invoicing scheme and when the Government had knowledge of an intent to defraud with respect to the misclassification of entries,” CIT said. Because more facts are necessary, CIT denied Greenlight’s motion for summary judgment and said Greenlight and the government could submit more evidence on the statute of limitations issue at trial.