CBP can confer classification "treatment" on a good through consistent decisions at a single port, the Court of International Trade ruled March 24. Finding importer Kent International's imported child safety seats for bicycles should be classified as seats rather than bicycle parts, Judge Leo Gordon agreed with Kent that the Port of New York/Newark's consistent classification of them as seats constituted treatment on a "national basis" because the standard does not require treatment to have been applied at multiple ports, only that CBP not take inconsistent actions over a two-year period.
Ben Perkins
Ben Perkins, Assistant Editor, is a reporter with International Trade Today and its sister publications, Trade Law Daily and Export Compliance Daily, where he covers sanctions, court rulings, and other international trade issues. He previously worked as a trade analyst for a Washington D.C. advisory firm. Ben holds a B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. in International Relations from American University. Ben joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2022.
The Court of International Trade should consolidate two classification cases concerning imported incontinence apparel, medical textile contractor Viecura told the court in a March 23 motion. Consolidation would "promote a speedy, just, and inexpensive resolution of cases" and is preferable to the designation of a test case because "the sole issue in these two cases is the same," Viecura said. It also would prevent the need to litigate two cases, while the court resolves the sole issue, Viecura said (Viecura v. U.S., CIT #s 21-00154, -00546).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade should affirm Commerce's remand redetermination in a countervailing duty investigation on granular polytetrafluorethylene resin from India, despite the department dropping a subsidy under protest, Commerce said in its March 16 response to remand comments (Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. v. U.S., CIT # 22-00120).
Commerce illegally departed from its standard methodology when it decided to use third-country control number (CONNUM) costs in the final results of an antidumping duty review on lined paper products from India and then attempted to obscure its standard practice as a defense in court, Navneet said in a March 17 reply at the Court of International Trade. The court should remand the case to Commerce with instructions to recalculate Navneet’s 20.22% dumping margin, the brief said (Navneet Education v. U.S., CIT # 22-00132).
The Court of International Trade should disallow a respondent in an antidumping duty case on steel nails from Taiwan to speaki at oral arguments, plaintiff Mid Continent Steel & Wire said in a March 20 opposition motion (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. U.S., CIT # 15-00213).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated March 21 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):
Two separate motions for summary judgment in a case involving allegedly defective plywood were shot down by Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves in a March 20 opinion. Choe-Groves found that Bral had not sufficiently made a case under the customs regulations that all its imported plywood was defective and should have been appraised at a lower value, but neither had DOJ proven otherwise.
The Commerce Department's determination to use acquisition costs as a proxy for costs of production without applying adverse inferences in its antidumping duty investigation covering raw honey from India was necessary to account for the structure of the Indian honey industry, with thousands of beekeepers and middlemen, and derived from lessons learned in a previous AD proceeding involving honey, DOJ argued in a March 17 reply brief at the Court of International Trade (American Honey Producers Association v. U.S., CIT # 22-00195).
Minority ownership by government-controlled entities does not change the presumption of government control, Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled in a March 20 opinion. The opinion upheld the Commerce Department's use of the China-wide rate for Pirelli Tyre on remand, with Choe-Groves holding that Pirelli failed to rebut the presumption in an antidumping duty administrative review of certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China.