Just as the recent flood of Section 301 litigation had appeared to slow to a trickle, importers added more than two dozen more lawsuits last week to the multitude of cases currently before the Court of International Trade. But while the new complaints restate the same arguments made by thousands of other plaintiffs in the sprawling litigation, many of the new cases differ in that they seek to invalidate only List 4 tariffs, excluding List 3 from the requests.
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.
A hotly contested exemption from safeguard duties on solar cells has now been terminated -- at least for the time being -- after the Court of International Trade on Nov. 19 declined to expand an injunction to include the administration’s latest bid to withdraw the exclusion, and lifted a temporary restraining order against the withdrawal (see 2010260025 and 2011090033). The elimination of the exemption takes immediate effect, according to a CBP spokesperson.
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 18 weighed in on the meaning of “not minced” and “packed in oil” for seafood preparations in the tariff schedule, finding tuna salad pouches imported by StarKist are both, and must be entered under a high 35% duty rate.
FDA has created a new import alert for ready-to-eat human foods that don’t meet the agency’s preventive controls regulation requirements. New Import Alert 99-43 published Nov. 13 provides for detention without physical examination of “Ready-To-Eat Human Food Products That Appear To Have Been Prepared, Packed, Or Held Under Insanitary Conditions,” its title says.
A furniture importer filed a wide-ranging legal challenge on Nov. 4 of CBP’s regulations and procedures for Enforce and Protect Act investigations. Aspects Furniture says the 2016 law, as well as CBP’s regulations and policies implementing it, deprived it of its constitutional due process rights. The importer also says CBP misapplied deadlines and relied on hearsay and unsupported claims to find it evaded AD duties. CBP found Aspects evaded antidumping duties on wooden bedroom furniture from China in an EAPA determination finalized in May (see 2005220029).
The Court of International Trade on Nov. 12 dismissed an importer’s challenge to the antidumping duty rate it was assessed following completion of an administrative review that covered its Chinese exporter. Intercontinental Chemicals (ICC) should have participated in the administrative review if it wanted to challenge its exporter’s oversight that led to the assessments at a rate of 154.07%, rather than the zero rate the exporter was assigned in the review, CIT said.
CBP has been swamped with hundreds of thousands of protests related to Section 301 litigation on lists 3 and 4A China tariffs, as importers seek to preserve their rights to refunds if the lawsuits are successful, Robert Silverman of Grunfeld Desiderio said Nov. 9. Negotiations are ongoing with the Department of Justice to untether claims from liquidation dates, which would free importers from potentially having to file the protests to protect their rights, Silverman said, speaking at the Coalition of New England Companies for Trade’s virtual Northeast Cargo Symposium. “We’re trying to get DOJ to agree that liquidation is irrelevant. If they do, then we can stop filing these silly protests,” he said.
A product must include non-extruded aluminum parts to qualify for the finished merchandise exemption from antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China (A-570-967/C-570-968), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Nov. 6 decision. Aluminum pallets imported by Perfectus Aluminum don’t have any such parts, and are covered by the AD/CVD orders, the appeals court said, affirming a Commerce Department scope ruling.
A license fee paid to an unrelated company for the right to use an eco-friendly resin in the manufacture of shoe insoles and other fashion accessories is dutiable, and should be added to the price paid or payable for customs valuation purposes, CBP said in a recent ruling. The license fee paid by Weyco Group to an unnamed company meets the requirements of the three-factor test for dutiability, CBP said in HQ H312455, issued Oct. 28.
Face masks made in Ethiopia from fabric and other materials sourced from Thailand are products of Thailand, and are not eligible for duty benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, CBP said in a ruling issued Oct. 22 and posted to the agency’s online database on Nov. 2.