The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Commerce Department failed to explain its use of an inter-quarter comparison in a differential pricing analysis but not in a margin calculation, despite being told to do so by the Court of International Trade in a remand order, exporters argued Oct. 18 (Universal Tube and Plastic Industries v. U.S., CIT # 23-00113).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Oct. 23 affirmed CBP's classification of steel tubing with a thin interior coating mainly made of epoxy, melamine and silicon additives under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 7306, which covers certain iron or steel tubes and pipes. Judges Richard Taranto, Todd Hughes and Tiffany Cunningham said the goods, imported by Shamrock Building Materials, don't fit under heading 8547, which covers electrical conduit tubing lined with insulating material because the heading requires "commercially significant insulation of the conduit against current flow" -- which Shamrock's tubing doesn't have. The result is a 25% Section 232 tariff on the imports.
Surety firm Aegis Security Insurance Co. argued on Oct. 21 that the government's action seeking to collect unpaid duties on a Chinese honey entry imported in 2002 is barred by the statute of limitations or CBP's failure to issue the bill for the duties within a reasonable amount of time. Should either of these theories fall short, Aegis said it's entitled to judgment due to CBP's "inordinate and inexcusable delay in billing Aegis" and the fact that its reinsurer went insolvent, among other confounding factors, the company said (United States v. Aegis Security Insurance Co., CIT # 22-00327).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 21 in a confidential decision sustained the Commerce Department's denials of all eight of importer Seneca Foods Corp.'s requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs. Judge Gary Katzmann gave the parties until Oct. 22 to review the confidential information in the decision. Katzmann previously remanded the exclusion rejection on the grounds the Bureau of Industry and Security failed to address contradicting evidence that the U.S. industry couldn't timely provide the importer's tin mill products (see 2310180052). On remand, BIS stuck with its rejections of the exclusion requests, finding that U.S. Steel can make the same products in a sufficient quantity and in a timely manner to satisfy Seneca's needs (see 2404020047) (Seneca Foods Corp. v. United States, CIT # 22-00243).
The Court of International Trade on Oct. 18 granted the voluntary dismissal of importer LE Commodities' challenge to the Commerce Department's rejection of its requests for exclusions from Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs (LE Commodities v. U.S., CIT # 23-00220).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
A domestic trade group for catfish farmers brought a motion for judgment Oct. 15 before the Court of International Trade arguing that the Commerce Department should have at least applied partial adverse facts available to a mandatory respondent in its 2020-21 review of frozen fish fillets from Vietnam (Catfish Farmers of America v. U.S., CIT # 24-00082).
Three wildlife advocacy groups on Oct. 15 asked the Court of International Trade for expedited briefing in their suit challenging various federal agencies' alleged failure to ban fish or fish products exported from fisheries that don't meet U.S. bycatch standards under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The groups claimed their case is ripe for expedited treatment since the "public interest in enforcement of the statute is particularly strong" and failure to expedite would make the requested relief moot (Natural Resources Defense Council v. United States, CIT # 24-00148).