CBP released its Sept. 29 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 55, No. 38), which includes the following ruling action:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Knit gloves with a plastic coating on the palm and on the front and sides of the fingers are classifiable as textile gloves of heading 6116, not articles of plastic of heading 3926, the Department of Justice said in a brief filed Sept. 17 with the Court of International Trade. The gloves are entirely described by the terms of heading 6116, and as such can’t be classified in the residual subheading for plastics, DOJ said (Magid Glove & Safety Manufacturing Co. v. U.S., CIT # 16-00150).
Requiring a CBP protest to obtain a refund under exclusions from Section 301 tariffs usurps the authority of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and unlawfully hands it over to CBP, importers ARP Materials and Harrison Steel Castings argued at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (ARP Materials, Inc., et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #21-2176).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 24 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):
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied steel importer Transpacific Steel's motion for a full court rehearing of a panel decision to uphold President Donald Trump's Section 232 tariff hike on Turkish steel, in a Sept. 24 order. Transpacifc, along with several Turkish steel makers, moved for the panel rehearing and rehearing en banc, arguing that the panel's majority failed to impose the congressionally mandated limitations to the president's power in Section 232. Also, the petition argued that the majority improperly rejected the plaintiff appellees' equal protection claims (see 2108250022) (Transpacific Steel LLC, et al. v. United States, Fed. Cir. #20-2157).
George Iloulian, CEO of apparel company Delta Uniforms of New York, skimped on import duties by understating the true value of his company's imports, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said. Arrested on Sept. 23, Iloulian was then presented in Manhattan federal court where the civil fraud lawsuit was unsealed. Iloulian is accused of violating the False Claims Act by lying on entry documents submitted to CBP.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
More than 190 solar companies sent a letter Sept. 22 to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo urging the rejection of requests to begin anti-circumvention inquiries on solar cells and panels from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. “Steep duties proposed by an anonymous group of petitioners would devastate thousands of U.S. solar companies and cause the industry to miss out on 18 gigawatts (GW) of solar deployment by 2023,” the Solar Energy Industries Association said in a press release.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: