The U.S. government's attempt to dismiss anti-forced labor group International Rights Advocates' (IRAdvocates) suit seeking to compel CBP to respond to a withhold release order petition on cocoa from Cote d'Ivoire is "premised on a significant mischaracterization of IRAdvocates' case," the group argued. Filing a reply brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 13, IRAdvocates said its case is meant to compel a CBP response to the petition and not to secure an affirmative determination on the WRO, as the U.S. suggests (International Rights Advocates v. Kristi Noem, Fed. Cir. # 24-2316).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The U.S. agreed to apply Section 232 steel tariff exclusions to 13 of importer California Steel Industries' entries. Filing a stipulated judgment at the Court of International Trade on March 11, California Steel and the government said they settled all issues in the case, additionally noting that Section 232 duties applied to one of the importer's entries will be "final and non-protestable" (California Steel Industries v. United States, CIT # 21-00015).
Importer JBF Bahrain and the U.S. are progressing toward a settlement of the importer's customs case on CBP's denial of duty-free treatment under the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement for the company's polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film imports. Filing a joint status report on March 12 at the Court of International Trade, JBF said it has "resolved technical issues and provided document production to the defendant," while the U.S., through CBP, continues to examine "representative samples of the raw materials, intermediate product, and imported product" (JBF Bahrain v. United States, CIT # 23-00067).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Importer Masterank America dropped its customs case at the Court of International Trade, filing a notice of dismissal on March 10. The importer brought its suit in December 2024 to contest CBP's determination that its paraffin wax of Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 2712.20.0000, dutiable at 7.5%, has a country of origin of China. Masterank argued that the country of origin should be Taiwan. Counsel for the importer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment (Masterank America v. United States, CIT # 24-00235).
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The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
CBP and importer Motivation Design settled a customs case on pet carriers, with the government agreeing to go with the importer's preferred tariff classification for a lower duty rate. Filing a stipulated judgment at the Court of International Trade, the parties agreed that CBP will classify the pet carriers under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 6307.90.98, dutiable at 7%, as "other textile articles," instead of subheading 4202.92.90, dutiable at 17.6%, as a case with outer surface of textile materials. CBP classified the goods under subheading 4202.92.90 at entry (Motivation Design v. United States, CIT # 15-00212).