The government correctly classified counterweights for mini-excavators as "backhoe" parts, rendering them ineligible for a Section 301 tariff exclusion, CIT Judge Jane Restani ruled in a July 21 opinion.
The U.S. and importer Pacific World reached a settlement regarding the classification of artificial nails, Michael Roll, counsel for the importer, confirmed to Trade Law Daily. The settlement led to the dismissal of 15 cases at the Court of International Trade that were suspended pending resolution of a test case, also brought by Pacific World, which was resolved in 2016.
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Hemp wraps for use with non-tobacco legal herbal smoking mixtures are classifiable as "other" vegetable products, CBP said in a recently released ruling. The ruling came in response to an internal advice request, originally initiated over imports of wraps by Crown Distributing. The wraps were described by the requester as lacking tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and were intended for use only with non-tobacco legal herbal smoking mixtures.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 8 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 Court of International Trade on June 7 upheld the Commerce Department's classification of the surrogate values for aluminum ash byproduct and rolling oil inputs in the first antidumping duty administrative review on aluminum foil from China, as well as the agency's decision to use Maersk data to calculate surrogate freight costs and its refusal to grant respondent Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. a double remedies adjustment for input subsidies the respondent said were countervailable.
CBP found an article description for aircraft parts at the 10-digit level in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule begins with "other" and correctly denied a claim for unused substitution drawback, DOJ said in a June 2 cross motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade. The case concerns the placement of the word "other" in the superior text between the 8-digit HTS subheading and the 10-digit statistical reporting number. The court's ruling could shake up the industry and could change how CBP interprets what HTS numbers are eligible or not for this type of drawback (see 2303270031) (Spirit Aerosystems v. U.S., CIT # 20-00094).
CBP illegally failed to apply exclusions for Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs to eight shipments of hot wrought steel round bars even though the exclusions were granted after the shipments entered the U.S., importer Saarsteel argued in a complaint last week at the Court of International Trade. The company said it is CBP's practice to allow an importer to claim a granted exclusion via a post-summary correction or a protest when the exclusion was granted after the entry was made but "relates back to a submission date covering the entry" (Saarsteel Inc. v. United States, CIT # 21-00271).
Fourteen types of frozen fruit mixtures, five of which contain vegetable ingredients, should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 0811.90.80 as "other" frozen fruits, dutiable at 14.5%, the Court of International Trade ruled. Judge Stephen Vaden said the merchandise is properly classified under heading 0811 since the term "Fruit ... frozen" describes these goods in whole.
The Commerce Department did not offer any source to justify its use of 24 working days per month as part of its surrogate value calculation for labor in an antidumping review, the Court of International Trade ruled. Remanding parts and sustaining parts of the seventh administrative review of the AD order on multilayered wood flooring from China, Judge Richard Eaton also sent back Commerce's surrogate financial ratio calculation for manufacturing overhead. Eaton did uphold the surrogate value determination for glue, however.