Wilton Industries appealed a Court of International Trade judgment that found in favor of CBP’s classification of its “Stampin Up!” decorative hole punches for use in scrap booking. Wilton had argued that they are classifiable as cutting machines under Harmonized Tariff Schedule Chapter 84 and should have entered duty free, but CIT said CBP correctly classified them as perforating punches under HTS Chapter 82, dutiable at 3.3 percent. CIT also threw out an agreement between Wilton and CBP that the judgment would only apply to 16 models of Wilton hole punches, instead applying the ruling to all 39 models at issue.
The Court of International Trade affirmed the International Trade Administration’s recalculation of Chinese exporter Shantou Red Garden Foodstuff’s antidumping duty rate in the investigation of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from China (A-570-893). CIT had remanded Red Garden’s 27.89 percent AD rate for recalculation in January. In its remand redetermination, the ITA assigned Red Garden an AD rate of 7.2 percent. CIT objected to the ITA’s use of a single Indian company’s data to calculate the surrogate value for Red Garden’s shrimp inputs in its remand redetermination, despite the availability of country-wide Ecuadorian data. But Red Garden did not object, so CIT affirmed.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers filed a joint challenge of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s conflict minerals rule with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Oct. 19. The final rule, published Sept. 12, requires some companies using tantalum, tin, gold or tungsten to disclose use of the minerals and possibly file a detailed report. The Chamber and NAM also challenged the underlying provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. The appeal provided no details on the challenge, but simply requested that the conflict minerals rule be modified or set aside.
The Court of International Trade affirmed an International Trade Commission negative injury determination for finished heat sinks in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of aluminum extrusions from China (A-570-967). The ITC found injury to U.S. industry by imports of other types of aluminum extrusions, so the International Trade Administration issued AD and CV duty orders. These orders excluded finished heat sinks from the scope, however.
Mohammed Reza “Ray” Hajian of Tampa, Fla. was sentenced Oct. 18 to four years in federal prison, as well as a $10 million fine and one year of supervised release following the end of his prison term, for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Iranian Transaction Regulations, said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Hajian pleaded guilty July 11, along with three of his companies: RH International, Nexiant, and P & P Computers.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrested a Florida man in connection with a scheme to illegally import dinosaur fossils into the U.S., including a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton from Mongolia, and a Microraptor skeleton from China. The arrest follows an earlier civil suit seeking forfeiture of the Tyrannosaurus skeleton.
A former American Airlines baggage handler was sentenced to life in prison Oct. 16 for his leadership of an international drug trafficking organization, said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Victor Bourne led an organization that smuggled narcotics from the Caribbean into the United States through John F. Kennedy International Airport, ICE said. Bourne was convicted in October 2011.
The Court of International Trade affirmed CBP’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule tariff classification of tuna imported by Del Monte from Thailand as packaged ‘in oil,’ despite containing at most 2.48 percent oil in the packaging, based on nearly hundred year-old appeals court precedent. CIT also affirmed CBP’s assessment of duties based on the invoice price for the tuna. Del Monte had argued that its Thai supplier did not comply with the terms of the purchase agreement, and later repaid the difference after importation, but CIT said the regulations are clear in requiring CBP to disregard any rebate of the price paid or payable after importation of merchandise.
Adverse facts available (AFA) countervailing duty rates must be corroborated just as is the case with AFA antidumping duty rates, said the Court of International Trade, as it remanded the final results of the 2007 administrative review of certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India (C-533-821). CIT took up the issue after a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling in April overturned a CIT remand of an AFA rate applied to a subsidy benefit received by Essar Steel. CAFC said the ITA’s decision to apply an AFA rate was supported by substantial evidence, but the court did not rule on whether the ITA’s AFA rate was reasonable.
Two metropolitan Detroit residents face criminal charges after their arrest during an enforcement action targeting counterfeit air bags allegedly imported from China, said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Samar Ayoub, 39, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., and Hussein Jomaa, 30, of Dearborn, Mich., are charged in a criminal complaint with knowingly trafficking counterfeit merchandise, ICE said. Trafficking in counterfeit merchandise carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison.