Congress should revise the customs penalties statute to allow for injunctions against importers that bring in goods that violate the law, the Department of Homeland Security said in recommendations posted Jan. 13. “Due to the high volume of shipments, the lengthy penalty process, a penalty structure based solely on value, and the reliance on private entities to enforce parts of the enforcement structure, many counterfeiters willingly incur the cost of a seized shipment or paying a penalty when the U.S. Government interdicts a shipment,” DHS said. That is why “Congress should amend Section 526(f) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1526) to allow for the United States to seek an injunction against the importers of violative merchandise,” it said. “In addition, a civil penalty threshold to match the criminal penalty threshold should be created.”
Tim Warren
Timothy Warren is Executive Managing Editor of Communications Daily. He previously led the International Trade Today editorial team from the time it was purchased by Warren Communications News in 2012 through the launch of Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. Tim is a 2005 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and lives in Maryland with his wife and three kids.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Jan. 4-8 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
A multi-station conveyor system used for assembling internal combustion engines should be classified based on the workstations and not the conveyors, CBP said in an Oct 2. ruling. The importer, Sanyo Machine America, through its lawyer at Neville Peterson, asked CBP to review its denial of a protest involving the assembly system. The goods were imported unassembled from Japan and originally entered under heading 8428 as “other lifting, handling, loading or unloading machinery.” CBP subsequently reclassified the system under heading 8479, as “machines and mechanical appliances [that] have individual functions not specified elsewhere.”
Goods stored in a foreign-trade zone that are sold to customers in Canada and subsequently returned in the same condition don't require duty payments if duties were already paid, CBP said in a Dec. 16 ruling. Long Tall Sally Limited asked CBP about how changes under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act to the provisions for returned goods in subheading 9801.00.10 apply. The statute doesn't specifically differentiate between “previously imported and entered with duty paid (i.e., domestic status), or imported without duty paid (i.e., foreign privileged status),” CBP said.
New 25% percent tariffs on goods from France that were to begin Jan. 6 are suspended, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a news release Jan. 7. The tariffs were planned as a result of France's digital services tax and the suspension will allow the agency to complete investigations into other countries' DSTs. “Given that these DST investigations are ongoing and have not yet reached any determinations on what, if any, trade action should be taken, the U.S. Trade Representative has determined that it is appropriate to suspend the action in the France DST investigation indefinitely,” it said in a notice. The announcement follows days of confusion over whether the Jan. 6 tariffs were being implemented (see 2101060047).
CBP was correct when it found against an importer's use of price paid to a related factory in China, rather than the price paid by the importer's customers, the agency found in a Sept. 9 ruling. The director of the Industrial and Manufacturing Materials Center of Excellence and Expertise (CEE) requested an internal advice ruling after Mayer Brown asked for a further review of protest on behalf of the importer, World Wide Packaging. The import entry involved two line items of “plastic tubes used for personal care products, which were the subject of purchase orders from two unrelated U.S. customers of WWP.”
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Dec. 28-31 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories published in 2020 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference numbers.
CBP issued a withhold release order for imported “tuna and other seafood harvested by the Lien Yi Hsing No. 12, a Taiwanese flagged and owned distant water fishing vessel,” CBP said in a news release. Effective Dec. 31, CBP will stop seafood from the vessel at all U.S. ports of entry, it said.
CBP issued a withhold release order on “palm oil and products containing palm oil produced by Sime Darby Plantation Berhad and its subsidiaries, joint ventures, and affiliated entities in Malaysia,” the agency said in a news release Dec. 30. The WRO follows a monthslong investigation into SDP, Malaysia's largest producer of palm oil, Ana Hinojosa, executive director of CBP’s Trade Remedy and Law Enforcement Division, said during a Dec. 30 call with reporters. “It's pretty clear, we're expecting the trade community to know your supply chain,” she said.