The Court of International Trade on Sept. 11 granted a voluntary dismissal bid from conservation groups Sea Shepherd New Zealand and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in their action seeking an import ban on fish from New Zealand's West Coast North Island inshore trawl and inshore set net fisheries under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The U.S. on Sept. 10 opposed importer Interglobal Forest's bid for attorney's fees after it prevailed in an antidumping and countervailing duty evasion case. The government said Interglobal can't be considered a "prevailing party" because the court's decision sustaining CBP's remand decision reversing its evasion finding didn't "materially alter the legal relationship of the parties" (Interglobal Forest v. United States, CIT # 22-00240).

Importer Performance Additives filed its opening brief on Sept. 9 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, claiming that the Court of International Trade erred in finding that various of the company's duty drawback claims weren't "deemed liquidated." The company argued that the trade court imposed conditions on the deemed liquidation rule of 19 U.S.C. Section 1504(a)(2)(A) that don't exist in the statute and imposed the rules of Section 1504(a)(2)(B) despite this law not applying to the company's entries at issue (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).

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In oral argument Sept. 3 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit -- which the case's primary exporter attempted to avoid (see 2408020019 and 2408120039) -- judges clashed with the government over the Commerce Department's decision to assign unallocated costs to overhead, rather than another cost category (Risen Energy Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 23-1550).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 9 rejected importer Katana Racing's renewed motion to dismiss the govenrment's action against it seeking over $5.7 million in unpaid duties on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the trade court's previous dismissal of the case. In her first opinion since being confirmed to the court, Judge Lisa Wang said the U.S. didn't fail to properly identify the "person" liable for the violation, exhaust administrative remedies or bring the case on time (U.S. v. Katana Racing, CIT # 19-00125).

The Commerce Department stuck by its treatment of antidumping duty respondent Assan Aluminyum's raw material costs and hedging revenues on remand at the Court of International Trade in the AD investigation on aluminum foil from Turkey. However, the agency modified Assan's duty drawback adjustment, resulting in a slight uptick in the respondent's AD rate, from 2.28% to 2.3% (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Tiaret v. United States, CIT # 21-00616).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 5 said a CBP headquarters ruling on see-through pop-up tent "pods" that differed in outcome from a previously decided protest didn't require public notice-and-comment because the protest wasn't a "prior interpretive ruling or decision." Judge Timothy Reif dismissed one of importer Under the Weather's counts in its customs classification case on the pods, finding that the prior protest approval wasn't the result of "considered deliberations," didn't have "prospective effect" and wasn't "interpretive."

Judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Sept. 4 heard oral argument in a tariff classification case on electrical conduit imported by Shamrock Building Materials. Judges Richard Taranto, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham asked whether the conduit had an insulating function and whether there is a de minimis amount of insulating material a conduit needs to include to qualify for classification under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8547 (Shamrock Building Materials v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1648).

On appeal, the U.S. supported Court of International Trade Judge Jane Restani’s decision that imported weekly/monthly planners were properly classified as “diaries” under heading 4820 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (see 2404100052). The decision subjected the importer to Section 301 tariffs (Blue Sky The Color of Imagination v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 24-1710).