The case concerned whether U.S. Customs and Border Protection properly assessed duties under 19 U.S.C. § 1466 on work performed on the U.S.-flagged vessel Horizon Crusader during a 2006 drydocking in China, where the owner removed and replaced underwater hull coatings (including tin-based anti-fouling paint) to comply with an International Maritime Organization convention. Customs treated the work as dutiable repairs and denied the owner’s protest, but after a de novo trial the Court of International Trade denied the government’s motion for a directed verdict and entered judgment for the plaintiff. The court found that the primary purpose of the work was regulatory compliance rather than repair, that the hull had suffered only minimal blistering or corrosion, and that any repair aspects were incidental; it therefore held the expenses non-dutiable and ordered a refund of excess duties with interest.
The case involved Giorgio Foods' lawsuit challenging the denial of distributions under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA) for preserved mushroom imports, based on the company's responses to ITC questionnaires during related antidumping investigations. Giorgio moved to amend its complaint by dropping facial First Amendment and Equal Protection challenges to the CDSOA's petition-support eligibility requirement (while retaining as-applied challenges), adding claims for statutory violations by the ITC and Customs and for a Due Process violation, and clarifying its request for monetary relief. The Court of International Trade granted the motion in part and denied it in part, allowing the facial challenges to be dropped but rejecting the new statutory and Due Process claims as well as the clarification of relief. The court reasoned that the first two amendments aligned with Federal Circuit precedent in SKF USA permitting as-applied challenges, while the remaining proposals were futile or otherwise improper under the applicable procedural standards.
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The case concerned the proper tariff classification under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States for imported synthetic beta-carotene products (Betavit 10% and 20%) brought in by BASF between 2000 and 2001. U.S. Customs and Border Protection had classified the goods as food preparations under Heading 2106, while BASF argued they should instead fall under Heading 3204 as beta-carotene coloring matter, or alternatively as a provitamin under Heading 2936 or a medicament under Heading 3003. The U.S. Court of International Trade denied BASF’s motion for summary judgment because the record contained conflicting evidence on the products’ principal use, creating genuine issues of material fact that required a trial; the court followed its recent Roche Vitamins decision, which had reached the same result on similar beta-carotene merchandise.
In Ford Motor Co. v. United States, Ford Motor Company sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection over drawback entries (refund claims for duties on imported goods later exported) filed before December 2004 that Customs had not affirmatively liquidated by the time the suit was filed in September 2009. Ford sought a declaratory judgment that these entries were deemed liquidated by operation of law under 19 U.S.C. § 1504(a)(2) at the drawback amounts it originally asserted, barring Customs from later reviewing them or recovering alleged overpayments. The U.S. Court of International Trade denied the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held that jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i) attached when the action commenced and could not be ousted by Customs’s post-filing liquidations of some entries, and that the claims were ripe.
This case involves a motion filed by Roche Vitamins, Inc. in a customs classification dispute before the U.S. Court of International Trade, seeking to have specific paragraphs of its Statement of Material Facts Not in Dispute deemed admitted due to the U.S. government's allegedly insufficient responses under USCIT Rule 56(h). The court denied the motion. The core reasoning was that, although the defendant's responses may have fallen short of the rule's requirements for citing admissible evidence, Federal Circuit precedent requires the court in customs classification cases to independently reach the correct result on both facts and law rather than allowing procedural defaults to dictate outcomes that could misclassify merchandise.
This case involved a challenge by the Association of American School Paper Suppliers to the Department of Commerce's selection of financial data from an Indian company to calculate surrogate values in an antidumping duty review for lined paper products from China. After an initial remand, Commerce reaffirmed its choice of the Sundaram Multi Pap Ltd. data over alternatives proposed by the plaintiff. The United States Court of International Trade affirmed Commerce's redetermination, finding it supported by substantial evidence. The court reasoned that Commerce adequately explained why the selected data was usable despite some incompleteness and that there was no consistent policy of rejecting all incomplete statements.
The United States sued Ilona Zatkova to collect civil penalties for allegedly attempting to import glass nail files from the Czech Republic in violation of customs entry statutes (19 U.S.C. §§ 1484, 1485, and 1592). The defendant moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, claiming the government failed to effect proper service under USCIT Rule 4 and California law. The court denied the motion and granted the government an extension to complete service, holding that five prior attempts plus the defendant's subsequent acknowledgment established good cause and diligence sufficient to excuse technical defects in the affidavit of service.
The case involves Nucor Fastener Division challenging the U.S. International Trade Commission's negative preliminary injury determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations regarding certain standard steel fasteners from China and Taiwan. The court granted the plaintiff's motion for judgment on the agency record and remanded the matter to the ITC. The core reasoning was that the ITC's reliance on certain data collected in the investigations was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.
This case involves a challenge by Wuxi Seamless Oil Pipe Co., Ltd. to the U.S. Department of Commerce's final determination imposing antidumping duties on certain oil country tubular goods from China. Defendant-intervenors, including domestic steel companies, moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the plaintiff failed to exhaust its administrative remedies by not raising its arguments before Commerce and thus failed to state a claim or that the court lacked jurisdiction. The court denied the motion without prejudice, reasoning that the exhaustion issue was premature because the parties had not yet submitted briefs on the merits, and the court would not speculate on which arguments the plaintiff might raise.
The case involved Chinese producers of citric acid challenging the U.S. International Trade Commission's determination that imports of citric acid from Canada and China caused material injury to the domestic industry, which supported the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties. The Court of International Trade denied the plaintiffs' motion for judgment on the agency record and affirmed the Commission's final determination. The court found that the Commission's analysis of import volume, price effects, and impact on domestic producers was supported by substantial evidence, including its explanation that subject imports exerted significant pricing pressure despite some intra-industry competition among domestic producers.
The case involves KYD, Inc., a U.S. importer, challenging the U.S. Department of Commerce's assignment of a 122.88 percent antidumping duty rate to its entries of polyethylene retail carrier bags from Thailand during the 2006-07 administrative review. Commerce had applied this total adverse facts available rate to two non-cooperating Thai exporters, King Pac and Master Packaging, and used it for KYD's entries despite KYD's participation and submission of price information. The court had previously remanded the matter for Commerce to consider KYD's data or justify disregarding it. On remand, the court again remanded, holding that the selected rate lacked substantial evidentiary support for the entries at issue because it derived from a 2003 petition and was not shown to be relevant given the record, including KYD's information.
This case concerns the U.S. Department of Commerce's recalculation of antidumping duties on certain lined paper products imported from China by Shanghai Lian Li Paper Products Co., Ltd. After identifying errors in the original administrative review results covering 2006-2007 entries, Commerce sought and received a remand to adjust the plaintiff's factors of production database and inland freight values. The defendant-intervenor challenged the inland freight recalculation, arguing possible underreporting or other errors by the plaintiff, but the court found no supporting evidence on the record. The court affirmed Commerce's redetermination as supported by substantial evidence and in accordance with law.
The case involved a challenge by the Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee to the U.S. Department of Commerce's decision during an antidumping duty administrative review of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from Thailand. After an initial determination denying a constructed export price (CEP) offset to the Rubicon Group of Thai producers, the court remanded the matter, leading Commerce to grant the offset on redetermination. The court affirmed Commerce's redetermination. The core reasoning was that Commerce properly focused its level-of-trade analysis on the companies' reported selling activities rather than their indirect selling expense ratios, and that this determination was supported by substantial evidence and in accordance with law.
This case concerns a motion by plaintiff Giorgio Foods, Inc. to compel the United States International Trade Commission to add documents from 1998-99 antidumping injury investigations on preserved mushrooms to the administrative record in a dispute over eligibility for distributions under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act. The plaintiff had responded to ITC questionnaires by taking no position or opposing the petitions but alleged other actions supporting them, and the ITC had found it ineligible as an affected domestic producer. The court granted the motion, ordering inclusion of the original petitions, staff reports, transcripts, communications, and related materials. It reasoned that these documents formed part of the record the ITC necessarily consulted, even indirectly, when assessing petition support for Byrd Amendment qualification.
This case from the U.S. Court of International Trade concerned a consent motion by plaintiffs Shandong TTCA Biochemistry Co., Ltd., et al., seeking to conduct oral argument entirely in camera (privately) because the underlying International Trade Commission proceeding involved extensive proprietary business information. The court denied the motion. It explained that judicial proceedings should remain open to the public whenever reasonably possible, citing common-law traditions and precedents that require a showing of necessity and no less-restrictive alternatives before limiting access. The court noted that parties could instead request limited courtroom closures only when specific confidential facts must be discussed, rather than closing the entire argument.
The case involved Roche Vitamins, Inc. challenging U.S. Customs and Border Protection's tariff classification of its imported BetaTab 20% product, a stabilized beta-carotene powder containing gelatin, sucrose, and antioxidants, which Roche marketed for use in dietary supplements. Roche moved for summary judgment, arguing the product qualified for classification under Heading 2936 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule as a provitamin. The Court of International Trade denied the motion. The court reasoned that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the stabilizing ingredients made the product particularly suitable for specific uses rather than general use, precluding summary judgment on the proper classification.
The case involved Nucor Fastener Division challenging the U.S. Department of Commerce's decision not to investigate alleged subsidization of the Chinese standard steel fastener industry through currency manipulation as part of countervailing duty proceedings. The court granted the motions to dismiss filed by the United States and defendant-intervenors, dismissing the action without prejudice. The core reasoning was that the challenge was unripe because it targeted an intended scope of investigation rather than a final agency determination, and Nucor failed to show sufficient hardship that would warrant judicial review before the normal administrative process concluded.
The case involved a challenge by Horizon Lines, LLC to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection determination that antifouling coatings work performed on its vessel in China was subject to a 50 percent ad valorem duty as a foreign repair under 19 U.S.C. § 1466(a). The court granted summary judgment in part to the defendant on claims related to work above the waterline, which the plaintiff had abandoned. It denied summary judgment on the remaining claims because material facts were in dispute regarding the nature, purpose, effect, and prior condition of the antifouling system below the waterline, which are relevant to classifying the work as dutiable. The court noted that segregation of costs and the specific circumstances of the maintenance work required factual resolution before determining duty applicability.
This case involves a motion by Defendant-Intervenors (Thai shrimp exporters including Pakfood) to modify a preliminary injunction that suspends liquidation of entries subject to antidumping duties, while an appeal by Plaintiff Ad Hoc Shrimp Trade Action Committee is pending before the Federal Circuit after judgment was entered for the United States. The U.S. Court of International Trade denied the motion. The court reasoned that the movants had not shown changed circumstances necessitating modification, because the appeal could still lead to a remand requiring Commerce to recalculate margins for the exporters, and the possibility of such a change had not been eliminated.
This case involves a challenge by the Association of American School Paper Suppliers to the U.S. Department of Commerce's final results in the first administrative review of an antidumping duty order on certain lined paper products from China. The plaintiff contested Commerce's use of surrogate values from India to calculate normal value for the Chinese producer, including selections for financial ratios and paper input costs. The Court of International Trade granted the motion in part, finding that Commerce's choice of surrogate financial statements lacked substantial evidence, while upholding other determinations such as the use of the respondent's reported paper input data as supported by the record. The court remanded the matter to Commerce for further action consistent with its opinion.
