Minutes from the April 9, 2010 and April 22, 2010 meetings of the COAC Bond Subcommittee have recently been posted to CBP’s Web site. During these meetings, the Subcommittee addressed a number of bond-related issues, highlights of which include:
The International Trade Administration has issued the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative reviews of ball bearings and parts thereof from five countries for the period May 1, 2008 through April 30, 2009, as follows:
The FCC is expected to take up changes to the E-rate program, an order on pole attachment rates and a WCS-SDARS order at its May 20 meeting, based on a preliminary agenda released Thursday. Also on tap, a vote on the Mobile Wireless Competition Report and an order on local-number portability rules. Most of agenda items are follow ups to the National Broadband Plan. A rulemaking notice will continue the agency’s efforts to improve E-rate accessibility in schools and libraries, a commission official said. The proposals in the item are “more specific than what’s in the National Broadband Plan,” the official said. The agency is also to vote on an order on changes to the wireless communications services band meant to make deployment of wireless broadband services there easier. An earlier public notice proposed relaxing rules on the band while imposing new restrictions on duty cycles, out-of-band emissions. The rules will also likely establish a guard band to prevent interference with nearby spectrum users. Sirius XM has been the most vocal opponent to the rule changes, saying WCS service would interfere with its satellite radio service. The WCS Coalition has said the interference concerns are overblown. The pole attachment order is aimed at establishing pole attachment rates that are “as low and close to uniform as possible,” and improving the collection and availability of pole locations, an FCC official said.
Suddenlink plans to raise $500 million in new 8.625 percent senior notes due 2017 and will use the proceeds to pay back other debts, it said. Q1 sales gained 6.8 percent from a year earlier to $411.1 million, according to its preliminary unaudited results. The cable operator added 4,800 basic video customers during the quarter, 34,800 broadband customers and 21,800 phone subscribers.
The International Trade Administration frequently issues notices on antidumping and countervailing duty orders, investigations, etc. which Broker Power considers to be "minor” in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued, neither announce nor cause any changes to an order’s duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period, etc.
The International Trade Administration has made a preliminary affirmative antidumping determination that certain seamless carbon and alloy steel standard, line, and pressure pipe from China (seamless pipe) is being, or is likely to be, sold in the U.S. at less than fair value.
Broker Power is now issuing weekly summary reports highlighting the most active textile and apparel tariff preference levels1 from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s “Quota Weekly Commodity Status Report.” BP’s weekly report also lists the TRQ commodities on CBP’s weekly “TRQ/TPL Threshold to Fill List.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice announcing that the calendar year 2010 in-quota (low duty) tariff rate quota quantity for tuna and skipjack (tuna), in airtight containers, not in oil, weighing with their contents not over 7 kilograms each, that is not the product of any U.S. insular possession, as described in HTS 1604.14.22 (6% duty) has been set at 16,618,716 kg.
Mexico’s Diario Oficial announced on April 21, 2010, that its Ministry of Economy has initiated an antidumping duty investigation on imports of denim fabric that originate in China.
A new coordination mechanism isn’t needed to meet aviation communications requirements that depend on mobile satellite networks, Inmarsat told aviation officials meeting this month on spectrum management at the International Civil Aviation Organization. The organization favored a preliminary proposal for a new coordination mechanism to ensure long-term spectrum availability and access to meet AMS(R)S requirements under a 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference agenda item (CD March 10 p8). The current regulatory provisions aren’t good enough, Inmarsat said in a document submitted to the meeting, and a new forum could complicate the process or make coordination agreements more difficult to reach. No regulatory changes are needed to strengthen or enforce aeronautical mobile-satellite (route) service spectrum priority at L-band, Inmarsat said.