The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 16-22:
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.
An importer can still be guilty of infringing patents related to production processes, even if it didn’t itself perform those processes and only imported the finished good, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a Dec. 18 decision.
Winter snow wheels imported by Allied Wheel for use on passenger vehicles are not subject to antidumping and countervailing duties on steel wheels 12 to 16.5 inches in diameter from China (A-570-090/C-570-091), the Commerce Department said in a Dec. 16 scope ruling. The scope of the AD/CVD orders is meant to cover trailer wheels, and Allied Wheel’s winter snow wheels aren’t suitable for trailer use, Commerce said.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will grant one-year extensions to only six exclusions from the first list of Section 301 tariffs on China that were due to expire Dec. 28, it said in a pre-publication copy of a notice posted to its website. The notice is silent on the other 25 exclusions issued alongside the six that were granted extensions, so those 25 now appear set to expire on Dec. 28.
Advertising and trademark royalty fees paid to a fashion brand owner are not included in the dutiable value of apparel imported from an affiliated contract manufacturer, the Court of International Trade said in a Dec. 17 decision. While the importer, Trimil, correctly added design fees paid to Armani to the transaction value of its entries, the advertising and royalty fees also paid to Armani were not directly related to the importation from the manufacturer and are not dutiable, CIT said.
Ziploc bags are classifiable in the tariff schedule under heading 3923 as articles for the conveyance or packing of goods, rather than as plastic household articles of heading 3924, the Court of International Trade said in a Dec. 16 decision. Though the Ziploc bags could be classifiable in both headings, heading 3923 is more specific and is the correct tariff provision under General Rule of Interpretation 3(a), CIT said.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Dec. 2-8:
Some trade remedy exclusions are regulations, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it revoked a solar cells safeguard exemption without first putting it up for public notice and comment, the Court of International Trade said on Dec. 5 as it approved a preliminary injunction that keeps the exemption in effect.
CBP is hoping to begin its risk-based bonding program for new importers of merchandise subject to antidumping and countervailing duties in March 2020, but there still remain some thorny issues that need to be ironed out. The agency is still working on ACE enhancements, including identifiers and queries for new importers, said Lisa Gelsomino, of Avalon Risk Management, at the Dec. 4 meeting of the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC).
Another group of steel importers filed a broad legal challenge to Section 232 tariffs on iron and steel products on Dec. 3, this time alleging that the measures are based on a faulty Commerce Department report and should be terminated by court order and refunded.