The Court of International Trade on March 18 dismissed a lawsuit brought by a domestic pipe producer seeking to compel CBP to provide it with information related to an alleged duty evasion scheme by two importers. Judge Timothy Stanceu said that while the trade court did have jurisdiction to hear the case, Wheatland Tube Company improperly submitted its requests for information to CBP, and the agency properly rejected Wheatland's request to revoke a ruling letter.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
A customs lawsuit is set to enter the second phase of its bench trial to find whether importer SGS Sports' apparel qualifies for duty-free treatment, the Court of International Trade said in a March 21 opinion. SGS entered swimsuits under a duty-free special classification provision after first shipping them to Canada for warehousing at a supposedly related company's warehouse. The first phase of the trial was set up to find whether this warehousing agreement is a lease or similar use agreement. Finding the agreement to be a lease or similar use agreement, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves's decision allows the trial to proceed to the next phase, which will be to determine if the swimsuits qualify for duty-free treatment under HTS subheading 9801.00.20.
The government can seek reclassification of an importer's merchandise in court at a higher duty rate, even when CBP did not previously pursue the rate increase against the importer, DOJ said in March 15 brief in support of its counterclaim in a tariff classification suit brought by Cyber Power -- which says the counterclaim sets a dangerous precedent (Cyber Power Systems (USA) Inc. v. United States, CIT #21-00200).
Two chainsaw chain and blade importers, TriLink Saw Chain and TriLink Global, agreed to pay $525,000 to settle allegations that the companies misclassified their imports, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Iowa said. The U.S. alleged that the importers purposely classified their chain saw chains and blades from September 2018 through June 2019 under the wrong Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading to avoid paying Section 301 China tariffs -- a violation of the False Claims Act.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Imported net wrap should be classified in Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 8433 as part of harvesting machinery under subheading 8433.90.50 or agricultural machinery under heading 8436, rather than as textile material under heading 6005, RKW Klerks said in a motion filed March 15 at the Court of International Trade. RKW argued that the imported netwrap is "only used in harvesting machinery to produce round bales of hay, silage and fodder," a function that is "fixed with certainty at the time of importation" (RKW Klerks Inc. v. United States, CIT #20-00001).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Victoria's Secret and One Step Up filed 19 complaints at the Court of International Trade alleging that CBP had misclassified women's garments over a series of entries between 2002 and 2008. The 13 complaints (in Pacer) by Victoria's Secret and six by One Step Up filed on March 12 ask CIT to direct CBP to reliquidate the entries and refund the excess duties collected, with interest.
A nitrogen oxide sensor probe for diesel engines should be classified as an instrument of chemical analysis under Harmonized Tariff Schedule heading 9027, rather than an instrument of measurement under heading 9026, DOJ said in a brief filed March 8 at the Court of International Trade. DOJ argued that the probe's function falls within the definition of "chemical analysis" and that the sensor itself includes design features that meet plain language definitions of chemical analysis.