ITC Advises MTB Petitioners on Specific Info to Cover in Article Descriptions
Seekers of miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB) duty reductions for garment ensembles should include the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) subheadings and descriptions of individual, constituent garments in the “article description” part of their petitions for duty relief so that the International Trade Commission can accurately calculate revenue loss, ITC attorney-adviser Jan Summers said during a Nov. 29 webinar. ITC officials hosted the webinar to clarify information to include in MTB petitions after it received several improper filings since the opening of ITC’s online petition portal on Oct. 14 (see 1611090012). Filers can narrow the scope of apparel filings by defining fabric types more specifically, Summers said. “But you’d want to be careful,” she said. “Don’t add a requirement that would force the product to be classified in another rate line, or that causes interpretive issues.” After the ITC received a question about whether to include fabric sourcing information in petitions, Summers said that data isn’t appropriate for including in article descriptions. Filers also shouldn’t describe an apparel article according to the company that makes it, Summers added.
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MTB petitioners who file incomplete or incorrect information must subsequently submit a new application. During the webinar, Jennifer Rohrbach, program manager for the ITC, noted that while the ITC may alert filers to certain “deficiencies,” CBP could also express their views on the filings. She cautioned that while the ITC intends to alert petitioners of any necessity to refile, time and resources to get the word out might dwindle as the Dec. 12 end-of-submission period approaches. She urged anyone with petition questions to email mtbinfo@usitc.gov.
ITC Office of Industries MTB Coordinator Phil Stone told filers to include all applicable Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) registry numbers for any petitioned chemical product mixtures. Summers recommended employing more than product-use language to limit the scope of petitions, suggesting that filers describe physical characteristics to help the agency know whether the product is designed for the named purpose. Moreover, patent language sometimes can be the only thing that narrows the article description enough to “bring the petition in under the revenue loss cap,” she said. “But bear in mind that if you’re that specific, and if the thing that you’re naming is essential to the enforcement of the patent or the patent owner, you may well be restricting that provision only to one or two people who hold a license to import the product.” The ITC earlier this month issued MTB petition filing guidance after noticing several mistakes in article descriptions.