Disposable medical devices produced by Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy Systems (BD) may not be temporarily removed from a foreign trade zone (FTZ) for sterilization, said CBP in a June 21 ruling. The ruling came in response to a request on behalf of BD that CBP determine whether or not BD could temporarily remove devices such as needles, syringes, catheters and cannulas from a FTZ for sterilization purposes without entering the devices for consumption.

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website July 12, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)

In the July 3 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 28), CBP published two notices of revocation of rulings and treatment regarding drawback of processed prunes and the classification of valve cable supports.

Importers should continue to flag goods that are eligible for Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) beyond the expiration of the program on July 31, said CBP in a CSMS message. The normal duty rate should be paid for GSP goods following the expiration, but continued flagging of the imports will allow CBP to process automatic duty refunds if GSP is renewed with a retroactive clause, the agency said. Importers should use the special program indicator (SPI) A or A+, it said. Both GSP and the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) will expire at the end of the month unless Congress renews them. "No corresponding procedure is available" for the Andean programs. The expiration of GSP won't affect payment of the merchandise processing fee, said CBP.

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website July 11, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)

CBP is extending the comment period to Aug. 5, on the extension of an existing information collection, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Certificate of Origin. There are no changes to the information collected.

CBP has finished some of the initial work that will allow for entry summary quality control checks, known as edits, within the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), said CBP in its June "ACEopedia." CBP started with Harbor Maintenance Fee (HMF) validations to lay a foundation for additional validations and "developed a business rules engine that enables development teams to more easily capture, update, and maintain the business rules that govern how the validations work within the system," it said. "As development progresses and CBP gains more experience with Agile development, increasingly complex validations will be added. The second development Increment is focused on coding validations related to Classification. CBP plans to deploy Increments 1 and 2 in October 2013."

CBP New York/Newark released information in a pipeline notice showing the "cycle time measurement" of Centralized Examination Stations from April through June this year. The cycle times refer to the time from ocean container arrivals through final examination completion.

In the July 3 issue of the CBP Customs Bulletin (Vol. 47, No. 28), CBP published a notices that proposes to revoke rulings and similar treatment regarding the tariff classification of Aquadoodle draw and doodle mats.

Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated July 10 with 124 rulings, bringing the total number of searchable rulings to 178,041. The most recent ruling is dated 07/09/2013.