The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on July 28 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):
In a July 24 complaint, Chinese-origin 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyactic acid (2,4-D) importer PBI-Gordon Corp. challenged the International Trade Commission’s affirmative injury determination regarding its products on a number of fronts (PBI-Gordon Corp. v. United States, CIT # 25-00140).
In its motion for judgment July 25, petitioner Cornerstone Chemical Co. again argued (see 2502070029) that Turkey was the wrong surrogate selection for a Commerce Department investigation on melamine from Qatar because of different particular market situations that existed in both Turkey and Qatar (Cornerstone Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00005).
An entry of gold jewelry from Oman qualifies for duty-free treatment under the U.S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, importer Empire Jewelry argued in a July 28 complaint to the Court of International Trade. The importer noted that CBP doesn't disagree as to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading that applies to the case, subheading 7113.19.5090, but rather whether the jewelry originates in Oman under the terms of the FTA (Empire Jewelry v. United States, CIT # 24-00127).
Importers Global Plastics and Marco Polo International agreed to pay $6.8 million to settle claims that they violated the False Claims Act by knowingly failing to pay customs duties on plastic resin from China, DOJ announced. The U.S. said Global Plastics and Marco Polo, both subsidiaries of MGI International, received credit for "cooperating with the government."
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Importer Tri State Honey on July 24 dropped its lawsuit at the Court of International Trade on CBP's detention of its 11 honey shipments. In filing the suit, the company said CBP unlawfully detained the shipments and held them for nearly a year without explanation (see 2504300014). The importer was seeking at least $4 million in damages along with attorney's fees, since CBP allegedly violated the company's "due process rights" by failing to disclose the reasons for the detention of its honey and the evidence as to the honey's country of origin. Counsel for Tri State Honey didn't respond to a request for comment (Tri State Honey v. United States, CIT # 25-00080).
In a July 21 opinion made public July 25, the Court of International Trade remanded the Commerce Department’s administrative review of antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on Chinese-origin aluminum foil, saying that the department had to reconsider or explain why it refused the review’s exporters a double remedies offset. It said the relevant law requires the department to calculate a subsidy's price impact based on what the price might have been without the subsidy, not on whether prices declined during the review period.
Former trade lawyer Scott Lincicome, who now leads the libertarian Cato Institute's trade division, said the administration learned the natural consequences of Section 301 tariffs when Chinese goods flow to India, Mexico and Vietnam as inputs to manufactured goods that are created in those countries.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: