FDA is extending the period for comments on its proposal to set new record-keeping requirements for foods it deems high-risk, it said in a notice released Dec. 17. Part of its ongoing implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the agency’s proposed rule would require entities at key points in the supply chain to keep records of certain high-risk foods as they move through the supply chain, and also more general records of their traceability record-keeping program (see 2009220041). Comments on the proposal are now due Feb. 22, 2021.
Brian Feito
Brian Feito is Managing Editor of International Trade Today, Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. A licensed customs broker who spent time at the Department of Commerce calculating antidumping and countervailing duties, Brian covers a wide range of subjects including customs and trade-facing product regulation, the courts, antidumping and countervailing duties and Mexico and the European Union. Brian is a graduate of the University of Florida and George Mason University. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2012.
CBP looks set to issue a proposed overhaul of its regulations on forced labor in the near term, Ana Hinojosa, executive director of CBP’s Trade Remedy and Law Enforcement Division, said during the Dec. 16 meeting of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee. Hinojosa said she is “keeping my fingers crossed” that “hopefully in the next 30 days we might see it published.”
A federal grand jury in Houston indicted eight for criminal wire fraud and entry of goods by means of false statements for allegedly evading antidumping and countervailing duties by undervaluation and falsely declaring exporters with lower rates, the Department of Justice said in a Dec. 15 news release.
Four additional jewelry importers will pay more than $860,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit over allegations of misclassification and underpayment of duties, the Department of Justice said in a Dec. 10 news release. Roman & Sunstone, iStar Jewelry, Ansun and Starkes Gems, four related companies based in New Jersey, classified earrings based on the value of pairs or larger groups, instead of the value of single earrings, claiming a lower duty rate than they should have paid had they been correctly classifying the imports, DOJ said.
Golf clubs assembled in Mexico from titanium heads manufactured in Taiwan and carbon fiber shafts from China must be marked products of both, and the value of the shaft is subject to Section 301 tariffs, CBP said in a Dec. 2 ruling. The golf clubs do not undergo a substantial transformation in Mexico nor the required USMCA tariff shift, and both the shaft and head give the golf clubs their essential character, CBP said in ruling HQ H312495, posted to the agency’s ruling database on Dec. 10.
A former jewelry importer will pay more than $400,000 to settle a False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuit that alleges it intentionally misclassified imported earrings to avoid paying higher customs duties, the Justice Department said in a Dec. 8 news release. A TSI Accessories Group subsidiary allegedly classified the earrings based on the value of pairs or larger groups, when they should have been classified based on the value of each single earring, said the whistleblower complaint, subsequently joined by the Justice Department.
Importers must file protests to preserve their rights to Section 301 tariff exclusions issued after an entry has already liquidated, the Department of Justice said in a motion to dismiss a pair of lawsuits that seek to have the exclusions applied past the protest deadline. CBP’s failure to apply the exclusions was a protestable event, even if the exclusions did not exist at the time, and the Court of International Trade’s jurisdictional scheme means CIT can’t hear cases wherein the importer skipped the protest scheme, DOJ said.
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 1 sent an Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) evasion determination back down to CBP for reconsideration, finding the agency failed to properly disclose information to the accused that it relied on to find the importer guilty of evasion. CBP’s regulations require the agency to make available public summaries of any redacted or business confidential information on the record of an EAPA investigation, but CBP did not do so during a proceeding involving Royal Brush Manufacturing, a pencil importer alleged to have transshipped Chinese pencils through the Philippines to avoid antidumping duties, CIT said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the Commerce Department a wide berth to apply antidumping and countervailing duties to goods packaged alongside nonsubject merchandise, in a Nov. 30 decision that provoked a dissent from the appeals court’s only judge with a background in trade.
The International Trade Commission will recommend leaving in place current safeguard tariffs on large residential washers, it said in a Nov. 25 news release. The tariff rate quota, in place since 2018, “continues to be necessary to prevent or remedy serious injury to the U.S. industry,” and “the domestic industry is making a positive adjustment to import competition,” the ITC said.