Brian Feito

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 4-10:

CBP won’t go forward with its planned deployment of new Form 5106 until at least March 16, an agency official said on a call with members of the trade community. The agency has not yet set a date for the release, and may push the transition back even further depending on the level of readiness, he said on the Feb. 7 call. Testing is ongoing on the new Form 5106 in CBP’s ACE Certification environment, after deployment of the latest version of the importer ID form was delayed partly due to the recent partial federal government shutdown (see 1901170046).

Customs brokers should remain a key part of the global supply chain as CBP shifts to better operate in the modern trade environment, providing a “multiplier effect” to the agency’s education and data integrity efforts, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America said in comments to CBP dated Feb. 4. As e-commerce causes the number of importers to explode and the associated risks to increase accordingly, brokers should be considered “trusted partners, delivering the agency from the chaos of dealing with hundreds of thousands of importers,” the NCBFAA said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 28 - Feb. 3:

A cosmetics importer will pay $996,080 to settle charges that it violated sanctions on North Korea by bringing in false eyelash kits from China that contained North Korean materials, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a document posted Jan. 31 to its website. ELF Cosmetics imported 156 shipments of the eyelash kits worth $4,427,019.26 from two Chinese suppliers before becoming aware of the violations and voluntarily disclosing them to OFAC in January 2017, the document said.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 21-27:

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species will consider changes to restrictions on trade in rosewood, ipe and padouk at its next Conference of the Parties at the end of May, according to a list of proposals set for consideration at the meeting. One amendment proposed by Canada and the European Union would replace the current exemption for non-commercial shipments of rosewood with a specific exemption for musical instruments and a de minimis level for rosewood in finished goods, whether or not commercial in nature.

CBP is now accepting claims for drawback on Section 301 duties on products from China, said John Leonard, executive director-trade policy and programs, on a conference call held Jan. 23 to discuss issues related to the ongoing federal government shutdown. The agency has fixed a bug in ACE that was preventing Section 301 drawback claims and is now able to begin processing, though the agency’s ability to resolve particular issues will be limited due to staffing issues caused by the ongoing shutdown, he said.

Three steel importers recently filed a new lawsuit at the Court of International Trade alleging that an increase in Section 232 tariffs on steel products from Turkey to 50 percent is unconstitutional and violates statutory requirements. In a complaint filed Jan. 17, MedTrade, Transpacific Steel and A.G. Royce Metal Marketing (dba Concrete Reinforcing Products) seek a court order stopping implementation of the tariff increase and refunding any duties collected above the 25 percent applicable to other countries.

The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 14-20: