New Jersey jewelry company 21st Millennium and two individuals "who own or control the business," Iqbal Virani and Aqib Virani, admitted to evading customs duties on gold jewelry imports, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced. Per the terms of a settlement agreement, the company and the two owners also agreed to pay $1 million to the U.S. after admitting to evading over $400,000 in customs duties.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
CBP announced an Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) investigation on whether Ebuy Enterprises and Highland USA International evaded an antidumping duty order on xanthan gum from China. The agency said it found reasonable suspicion existed that the importers had transshipped Chinese-origin xanthan gum through Malaysia, necessitating the imposition of interim measures.
A defendant in a criminal fraud case shouldn't be allowed to add his criminal attorney to a protective order in a related civil case, DOJ argued in a Sept. 28 motion at the Court of International Trade (U.S. v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT # 22-00215).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The U.S. urged the Supreme Court of the United States to reject importer PrimeSource Building Products' petition for a writ of certiorari in a case on the expansion of Section 232 duties onto "derivative" products, telling the high court that PrimeSource's separation of powers claims fall flat. While the importer said the case can give the court a chance to reconsider its approach to nondelegation, the government argued that, under the principle of stare decisis, the petitioner must identify a "special justification" for revisiting established law, which it has failed to do here (PrimeSource Building Products v. U.S., Sup. Ct. # 23-69).
The Supreme Court of the U.S. on Sept. 13 extended the deadline for exporter Oman Fasteners to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in its case on then-President Donald Trump's expansion of the Section 232 duties to include steel and aluminum "derivative" products. The company now has until Oct. 20 to file the brief. Oman Fasteners said it was in the process of filing its own petition to the high court following importer PrimeSource Building Products' petition in its suit on the tariff expansion.
A protest approval relied on in a customs complaint from importer Under the Weather wasn't a "prior interpretive ruling" that CBP had to publish and revoke under 19 U.S.C. § 1625(c)'s notice-and-comment procedures before issuing a headquarters ruling on pop-up tents, the U.S. argued. Filing a partial motion to dismiss, the government claimed that only "interpretive determinations with prospective effect" qualify for the statute's "procedural safegurads" (Under the Weather v. United States, CIT # 21-00211).
CBP's Office of Regulations and Rulings wrongly overturned an evasion finding against Dominican company Kingtom Aluminio by CBP's Trade Remedy and Law Enforcement Directorate, the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee (AEFTC) said in its Sept. 20 reply brief at the Court of Intenrational Trade (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. U.S., CIT # 22-00236).
Actuators used in automotive applications that were produced in Mexico from Chinese, Mexican, U.S. and Taiwanese components are correctly Mexican origin and shouldn't have been assessed Section 301 tariffs, importer Suprajit said in a Sept. 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Suprajit Controls v. U.S., CIT # 23-00181).