CBP CROSS Rulings

The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9 with the following headquarters rulings (ruling revocations and modifications will be detailed elsewhere in a separate article as they are announced in the Customs Bulletin):

Trade Law Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Importer Performance Additives filed its opening brief on Sept. 9 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, claiming that the Court of International Trade erred in finding that various of the company's duty drawback claims weren't "deemed liquidated." The company argued that the trade court imposed conditions on the deemed liquidation rule of 19 U.S.C. Section 1504(a)(2)(A) that don't exist in the statute and imposed the rules of Section 1504(a)(2)(B) despite this law not applying to the company's entries at issue (Performance Additives v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-2059).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 9 rejected importer Katana Racing's renewed motion to dismiss the govenrment's action against it seeking over $5.7 million in unpaid duties on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the trade court's previous dismissal of the case. In her first opinion since being confirmed to the court, Judge Lisa Wang said the U.S. didn't fail to properly identify the "person" liable for the violation, exhaust administrative remedies or bring the case on time (U.S. v. Katana Racing, CIT # 19-00125).

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

Pistol maker Glock partially opposed a U.S. attempt to amend a scheduling order in a contentious case (see 2408130064) regarding CBP’s failure to deduct royalties from its valuation of a single entry of imported pistol kits. The importer said it agreed to a 60-day extension, but complained that the government “has repeatedly sought and obtained extensions of time to respond to all matters involving deadlines set by this Court’s rules, beginning with the time to file its Answer” (Glock v. U.S., CIT # 23-00046).

The Court of International Trade on Sept. 5 said a CBP headquarters ruling on see-through pop-up tent "pods" that differed in outcome from a previously decided protest didn't require public notice-and-comment because the protest wasn't a "prior interpretive ruling or decision." Judge Timothy Reif dismissed one of importer Under the Weather's counts in its customs classification case on the pods, finding that the prior protest approval wasn't the result of "considered deliberations," didn't have "prospective effect" and wasn't "interpretive."

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

Digital security cameras mounted as doorbells fall under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading governing TV cameras and video camera recorders, according to three separate CBP rulings issued June 21 and publicly released last week.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit during oral argument on Sept. 3 strongly questioned the U.S. in a customs case on whether cookware imports from Meyer Corp. qualify for first sale treatment. Judges Sharon Prost, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham questioned the government's defense of the Court of International Trade's decision to deny Meyer first sale valuation seemingly based on an adverse inference drawn against the company for its failure to submit its parent company's financial information (Meyer Corp. v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1570).