The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on March 2 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):
Country of origin cases
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
A recent Court of International Trade opinion left prior court precedent on the question of what constitutes a substantial transformation "dead, or on life support," an analysis from Neville Peterson said. The result is that importers who have been told by CBP that the country of origin of their goods is the country of origin of the goods' major inputs or essential components will likely seek reconsideration of those rulings, seeking refunds on Section 301 China tariffs in particular, the firm said.
A Feb. 24 Court of International Trade decision could result in "inching toward a saner and more legally sound approach to origin determinations" involving the substantial transformation test, customs lawyer Larry Friedman of Barnes Richardson said in a blog post Feb. 24. The language in the decision is "generally favorable for a simplified and more reasonable approach to origin," after years of focus on pre-determined end use of assembled components following the trade court's unappealed 2016 decision in Energizer.
CBP ignored the Court of International Trade's ruling that it needs some finding of culpability before determining that importer Diamond Tools Technology evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on diamond sawblades from China, DTT said in a Feb. 28 brief. Instead, CBP just ignored the court's definitions of the terms "false" and "omission" and illogically claimed that the customs penalty law's establishment of specific degrees of culpability negates the Enforce and Protect Act's culpability requirement, DTT argued (Diamond Tools Technology v. United States, CIT #20-00060).
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The Commerce Department didn't "consider the plain language of the scope" when it found a type of aluminum sheet imported from Turkey by AA Metals to be covered by the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on common alloy aluminum sheet from China, the importer said in a Feb. 22 complaint challenging a scope ruling issued by Commerce in response to a CBP covered merchandise referral in an AD/CVD evasion investigation (AA Metals v. United States, CIT #22-00051).
The Commerce Department stuck by its decision to hit affiliated antidumping respondents Ghigi 1870 and Pasta Zara with an adverse inference over their U.S. payment dates in Feb. 28 remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade. However, the agency dropped the adverse inference on the U.S. sales for which Commerce verified the correct date. The result, if sustained, is a weighted-average dumping margin of 91.74% for Ghigi/Zara (Ghigi 1870 S.P.A. v. United States, CIT #20-00023).
Graphite rods that Boart Longyear says it imports for machining into specialty components for use as molds are covered by the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on small diameter graphite electrodes from China (A-570-929), the Commerce Department said in a scope ruling issued in early February.
An investigation by CBP into alleged evasion of countervailing duties and antidumping duties on wooden cabinets from China has found substantial evidence of evasion by two importers. In a final EAPA determination, CBP found that importers, Splendid Trading and Superior Granite and Marble, engaged in a scheme to transship Chinese wooden cabinets through Malaysia, announcing that it will continue to suspend liquidation and require cash deposits on entries from the two importers.