The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated July 6 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):
Ben Perkins
Ben Perkins, Assistant Editor, is a reporter with International Trade Today and its sister publications, Trade Law Daily and Export Compliance Daily, where he covers sanctions, court rulings, and other international trade issues. He previously worked as a trade analyst for a Washington D.C. advisory firm. Ben holds a B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and an M.A. in International Relations from American University. Ben joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2022.
A Laredo, Texas, man effectively will pay $90,002.87 to settle a penalty case brought for his failure to report income in foreign bank accounts from the Mexican customs brokerage he owned, according to a July 6 notice. Miguel Mireles owned over 50% of Enrique Mireles Y Compania (EMYC), a Mexican customs brokerage, and failed to report income from the foreign accounts between the years of 2006 and 2013, DOJ said (U.S. v. Miguel Mireles, S.D. Texas # 21-00138).
The Court of International Trade on July 7 remanded a case contesting an antidumping duty administrative review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The still-confidential order from Judge M. Miller Baker directs Commerce to reconsider its surrogate country selection process and to consider countries at a “comparable level of economic development” as potential surrogates on an equal basis with countries Commerce deems to be at “the same level of economic development” (Catfish Farmers of America, et al. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00380).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
A case at the Court of International Trade contesting Commerce's lack of adjustment for non-selected companies' antidumping duty rates for export subsidies was dismissed on July 5 after agreement by all parties (Federation of Indian Quartz Surface Industry v. U.S., CIT # 23-00026). The case, originally brought in February by the Federation of Indian Quartz Surface Industry, contested as[ects of the final results of the AD administrative review on quartz surface products from India. The Quartz Federation had argued that Commerce inappropriately failed to adjust the cash deposit rate by the amount found to be subsidized in the companion CVD investigation (see 2302280014).
The Court of International Trade on July 7 remanded a case contesting an antidumping duty administrative review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam. The still-confidential order from Judge M. Miller Baker directs Commerce to reconsider its surrogate country selection process and to consider countries at a “comparable level of economic development” as potential surrogates on an equal basis with countries Commerce deems to be at “the same level of economic development” (Catfish Farmers of America v. U.S., CIT # 21-00380).
The lack of disclosure in Enforce and Protect Act evasion proceedings and the deferential standard of review "stack the deck" in favor of the alleger, giving importers "a lot to complain about in the EAPA process," customs lawyer Larry Friedman of Barnes/Richardson said in a July 6 blog post. Even importers who believe they have conducted reasonable due diligence may have serious unexpected liabilities that come out during the investigation, he said.
The Commerce department’s decision to use the all-others rate from an earlier antidumping duty investigation on quartz surface products to calculate the rate for the non-selected respondents in the first administrative review should be remanded to the agency, AD petitioner Cambria said in a June 30 motion at the Court of International Trade (Cambria Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00007).
CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act investigation on whether Suzhou Quality Import and Export had evaded antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China and imposed interim measures. The investigation followed a January allegation by the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee, which said Suzhou Quality had entered Chinese-origin aluminum extrusions subject to the AD/CVD into the U.S. without declaring them subject to those orders or paying the required cash deposits.