Additional force majeure charges imposed by a French seller of pipe-in-pipe assemblies are dutiable as part of the transaction value, CBP determined in a Feb. 23 ruling. The seller claimed the war in Ukraine affected its sourcing and transportation of the materials and, as a result, it imposed the additional force majeure charges through a change order when it was unable to fulfill its signed purchase agreement with KZJV, a U.S. importer.
Level the Playing Field Act 2.0, a bill that would rewrite antidumping and countervailing duty laws, has found a Republican co-sponsor after the retirement of the Republican co-sponsor on the bipartisan bill introduced in 2021 (see 2104160037).
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The U.S. and importer Root Sciences struck a settlement in a case on whether Root's cannabis crude extract recovery machine imports should be seized as "drug paraphernalia," the importer said in a March 7 brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Under the settlement, CBP will release the merchandise to the plaintiff and Root will end its suit, according to the consent motion to voluntarily dismiss the appeal (Root Sciences v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 22-1795).
The U.S. government, dissatisfied with the narrowing of a Mexican ban on genetically modified corn (see 2302150026), has asked for technical consultations under the USMCA's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) chapter. A formal dispute can't be initiated without first taking this step.
Although the Biden administration took unprecedented action to shield solar panel importers from antidumping and countervailing duties -- after hearing from a third of the Senate's Democratic caucus and two Republicans that the anti-circumvention investigation was harming the solar installation industry -- the political pressure has not abated.
Proclamations increasing tariffs on Russian goods (see 2302240006) were published in the March 2 Federal Register, alongside annexes detailing the tariff subheadings facing the tariff increases. President Joe Biden authorized hiking tariffs from 35% to 70% on 45 products from Russia, largely steel and iron products, but also copper, lead, industrial diamonds and some aluminum categories; and upped tariffs on most aluminum products to 200%. Most of the 570 products previously subject to the 35% tariff will remain taxed at 35%.
China's military ambitions, its role in the fentanyl crisis and Chinese purchases of U.S. farmland all got attention during the first hearing of the Select Committee on China -- but trade, and China's distortions of the global market, were the focus of both Democrats' and Republicans' questions to witnesses from the Trump administration and the head of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is "unlikely" to revisit its 2004 decision finding that False Claims Act qui tam cases involving customs duty avoidance belong at the Court of International Trade, law firm Morgan Lewis said in a Feb. 23 blog post. Overturning the decision would require an en banc ruling from the court, something that does not seem probable given that it is a whistleblower action in which the government hasn't intervened, the post said.
The Court of International Trade’s recent tariff classification decision on Cyber Power’s uninterruptible power supplies “may be a meaningful reset of the law of substantial transformation,” moving the analysis back to a comparison between parts and finished components after a period of focus on essence or critical components, customs lawyer Larry Friedman said in a Feb. 27 blog post.