Nat Halvorson, a former official in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, has joined Baker McKenzie as a partner in its international trade practice, the firm announced. Halvorson worked at USTR for the last decade, most recently working as deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for monitoring and enforcement.
The U.S. agreed to liquidate importer Topcon Positioning Systems' rotated laser levers and pipe laser levels and parts and accessories to the laser levels under duty-free subheadings, according to a stipulated judgment filed at the Court of International Trade on March 31 (Topcon Positioning Systems v. United States, CIT # 14-00189).
The Court of International Trade on April 1 said it's satisfied with the progress CBP is making on standing up an administrative process for doling out refunds for tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Atmus Filtration v. United States, CIT # 26-01259).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 23-29:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on March 31 upheld the Federal Maritime Commission's final rule from 2022 defining an "unreasonable refusal to deal or to negotiate with respect to vessel space." Judges Douglas Ginsburg, Sri Srinivasan and Justin Walker held that the FMC has the authority to consider price and require ocean carriers to have a "documented export policy" in evaluating whether an ocean common carrier has acted unreasonably (World Shipping Council v. Federal Maritime Commission, D.C. Cir. # 24-1298).
Abdelali Elouaradia, a long-time official at the Commerce Department, has joined the International Trade Commission on a one-year detail as an adviser to the Office of Operations, he announced on LinkedIn. Elouaradia, who had been serving as principal deputy assistant secretary for enforcement and compliance, said his ITC detail will strengthen collaboration between Commerce's Enforcement and Compliance office and the ITC.
Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton on March 27 broadened his prior order requiring CBP to begin paying refunds of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to include finally liquidated entries. The judge's initial order only covered non-finally liquidated entries but now states that "[a]ny liquidated entries for which liquidation is final shall be reliquidated without regard to the IEEPA duties."
A group of exporters and importers represented by Taft asked the Court of International Trade to lift the stay on their cases seeking refunds for tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act so they can "explain the need to immediately refund" IEEPA tariffs "even for entries for which liquidation is suspended" due to ongoing antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 16-22:
The Court of International Trade on March 20 broadened its order requiring CBP to begin paying refunds for tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for non-finally liquidated entries to include additional tariffs imposed on Brazil and India. Previously, the order was limited to the IEEPA tariffs at issue in the cases before the Supreme Court, which only included the reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico (Atmus Filtration v. United States, CIT # 26-01259).