CBP's Office of Regulations & Rulings legally reversed the Trade Remedy & Law Enforcement Directorate's finding that Dominican company Kingtom Aluminio evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the U.S. argued in an Aug. 23 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The government said that OR&R lawfully decided not to apply adverse inferences against Kingtom as requested by petitioner Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. United States, CIT # 22-00236).
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:
Vanguard National Trailer Corporation imported steel wheels from China covered by antidumping and countervailing duty orders through evasion, according to the results of a recently released Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigation. CBP said that Vanguard had entered steel wheels "using false statements that they didn't contain covered merchandise," despite the company's protests that it believed the wheels were out of scope.
Correction: Importer YVC USA told CBP in the course of an Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigation that it was unaware that its Chinese supplier was conducting an evasion scheme by transshipping Chinese-origin forged steel fittings through Sri Lanka (see 2308220028).
The Court of International Trade on Aug. 22 upheld the Commerce Department's exclusion of hardwood plywood made by Vietnam Finewood using two-ply panels imported into Vietnam from China from the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China. Judge Mark Barnett in an Aug. 22 opinion said the move was in line with his prior order instructing the agency to "issue a scope ruling consistent with the unambiguous terms" of the orders' scope.
An importer of forged steel fittings told CBP it was never aware its Chinese supplier was participating in a scheme to transship forged steel fittings, covered by antidumping and countervailing duty orders, from China through Sri Lanka, yet CBP concluded its Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigation with the determination that the importer, YVC USA, had evaded the duties, according to a recently posted notice.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Aug. 21 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):
Exporter Oman Fasteners is drafting its own petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the U.S. in the case on then-President Donald Trump's expansion of the Section 232 duties to include steel and aluminum "derivative" products. In an Aug. 21 letter to the high court, counsel for Oman Fasteners said that as a plaintiff-appellee aligned with importer PrimeSource Building Products -- the lead appellee in the suit at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit -- it supports PrimeSource's cause and will file a brief "within the timeframe permitted" by the law and the court's rules (PrimeSource Building Products v. United States, Sup. Ct. # 23-69).
The statute of limitations for CBP to collect on customs bonds runs six years from the date of the underlying entry's liquidation, not from the date that CBP demanded payment, the Court of International Trade said in an opinion released publicly on Aug. 22, rejecting CBP's bid to collect on a 20-year-old customs bond.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: