Importer Scottsdale Tobacco launched a case at the Court of International Trade to contest CBP's denial of its drawback claim on its Canadian-origin paper-wrapped cigarettes. Filing a complaint on Jan. 30, the importer said its drawback claim "met the requirements" for a substitution unused merchandise drawback of the federal excise taxes it paid, since it exported the cigarettes from Florida less than five years after the relevant imports (Scottsdale Tobacco v. United States, CIT # 24-00022).
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. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 29 issued its mandate in a customs case on the classification of textile gloves with a plastic coating on the palm and fingers. The appellate court said the gloves fit under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 6116 as gloves and not as articles of plastic under heading 3926 (see 2312060028). Importer Magid argued that Section XI Note 1(h) excluded the gloves from heading 6116 and that the Federal Circuit's ruling in Kalle USA v. U.S., a case concerning sausage casing, precluded classification as textiles and apparel of Section XI (Magid Glove & Safety Manufacturing Co. v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1793).
The U.S. and three importers filed a joint status report announcing they intend to settle several consolidated cases (see 2108190038) contesting the Commerce Department’s denials of the importers’ Section 233 steel tariff exclusion requests (Valbruna Slater Stainless.v. U.S., CIT #21-00027).
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The Court of International Trade on Jan. 30 said that for drawback purposes the 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings should be read starting with their directly adjacent text and not the superior indented text. Judge Claire Kelly said the "plain meaning" of the statute governing substituted unused merchandise drawbacks refers to the "words describing the article adjacent to the 10-digit number."
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. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Jan. 26 gave the U.S. another 14 days to file its response to a group of solar panel exporters' bid for rehearing of the appellate court's ruling that President Donald Trump properly revoked a tariff exclusion for bifacial solar panels. The government has until Feb. 16 to submit its brief, which was invited by the court following the rehearing motion (see 2401220027) (Solar Energy Industries Association v. U.S., Fed. Cir. # 22-1392).
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 30 rejected importer Spirit Aerosystems' claim that the "preceding indented text" to any 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading should be read as part of the article description for purposes of claiming a substituted unused merchandise drawback. Spirit's had argued its 10-digit subheading begin with the superior text "For use in civil aircraft" as opposed to "other," avoiding a prohibition on unused merchandise drawback for HTS subheadings that begin with the word "other." But Judge Claire Kelly said the "plain meaning" of the drawback statute refers to the words adjacent to the 10-digit number and not the superior indented text, and that Congress meant to exclude article descriptions with the word "other" to eliminate the need for CBP to find on a case-by-case basis whether goods are sufficiently similar to be eligible for drawback.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: