DOJ is seeking nearly $15 million in unpaid customs duties and civil penalties from five Florida importers at the Court of International Trade for alleged evasion of antidumping duties, according to a May 15 complaint (U.S. v. Lexjet, et al., CIT # 23-00105).
Country of origin cases
DOJ this week unsealed indictments of six people for trying to illegally ship sensitive items from the U.S., including shipments of dual-use technologies and aircraft parts to Russia, isostatic graphite to Iran and trade secrets to China. The charges are the first enforcement actions brought by the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a group launched by DOJ and the Commerce Department in February to investigate and prosecute criminal export violations (see 2302160019).
Actuator cable assemblies assembled in Mexico from Chinese motors and various parts from China, Taiwan, the U.S. and Mexico are products of China based on the motor's predetermined end use, CBP said in a recent ruling -- the first publicly released that cites the Court of International Trade's recent decision in an origin case involving Cyber Power (see 2302270064).
The Court of International Trade ruled that exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari (Erdemir) failed to show that the court should revisit its past order allowing four U.S. steel companies to intervene in a case on the International Trade Commission's injury determination related to imports of hot-rolled steel from Turkey. Judge Timothy Reif said the four companies champion claims that share a common question of law or fact with the case's main action, would be adversely affected if the court were to rule in Erdemir's favor and would not unduly delay the adjudication of the original parties' rights.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 15 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Importer Acquisition 362, d/b/a Strategic Import Supply (SIS), filed a petition for writ of certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion requiring protests to be filed within 180 days of liquidation and not the date the Commerce Department issues antidumping and countervailing duty instructions to CBP. SIS said that by establishing this requirement, the appellate court eliminated one statutory mechanism under which importers can file protests and encourages "premature, incomplete, sham protest filings" (Acquisition 362 v. U.S., U.S. # 22-1102).
The Court of International Trade ruled that Turkish exporter Erdemir failed to show the court should revisit its past order allowing four U.S. steel companies to intervene in a case on the International Trade Commission's injury determination on imports of hot-rolled steel from Turkey. Judge Timothy Reif said the four companies make arguments that share a common question of law or fact with the case's main action, would be adversely affected if the court were to rule in Erdemir's favor and would not unduly delay the adjudication of the original parties' rights. However, Reif continued to deny U.S. Steel Corp.'s right to intervene, finding the company did not explain how it would be adversely affected by the decision.
The Court of International Trade should reconsider its opinion on the origin of Cyber Power Systems (USA)'s uninterruptible power supplies because the court shirked its responsibility to arrive at the correct determination, the importer said in a reply brief. Even though the trade court ruled against Cyber Power's position that its power supplies are made in the Philippines, it did not take the next step to determine the goods' actual origin, making "no findings of fact regarding manufacture in China," Cyber Power said (Cyber Power Systems (USA) v. United States, CIT # 20-00124).
Importer Farrier Product Distribution settled its case originally challenging Section 232 steel and aluminum duties on "derivative" products, securing refunds of the duties, the company told the Court of International Trade in a motion to voluntarily dismiss its case. Farrier said the parties sought to "resolve the legal controversy that gave rise to this matter," adding that the U.S. and the importer have been "successful in that effort" (Farrier Product Distribution v. United States, CIT # 20-00098).