The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated July 27 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):
Country of origin cases
The country of origin of certain surgical gowns imported by Global Resources International and Santé USA is the Dominican Republic and not the U.S. for the purposes of government procurement, CBP said in a final determination. Since the most important assembly or manufacturing processes in the production of the gowns took place in the Dominican Republic and not the U.S., the country of origin is the Dominican Republic, CBP said. The agency then directed the importers to consult with the relevant government procuring agency to find whether the gowns qualify as "U.S.-made end products" for the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
The Court of International Trade ruled that the U.S. can't file a counterclaim in a customs case brought by Second Nature Designs, according to a July 25 order by Judge Gary Katzmann (Second Nature Designs v. U.S., CIT #21-00271).
The Court of International Trade should circumvent the remand process and order the Commerce Department to grant exclusions to Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, steel company NLMK Pennsylvania argued in a July 22 brief. Likening its experience with the exclusion process at Commerce to "a bad remake of Groundhog Day," the plaintiff argued that Commerce has repeatedly ignored the record evidence which plainly shows that the U.S. companies do not have the capacity to fill NLMK's requests (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT #21-00507).
CBP's findings in its Enforce and Protect Act investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China were arbitrary and an abuse of discretion, Skyview Cabinet said in a July 18 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade. "Simply put, CBP failed in its investigation duty, believing that it was confronted with evidence of basic transshipments,” Skyview said (Skyview Cabinet USA v. United States, CIT #22-00080).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
CBP illegally found that importers American Pacific Plywood Inc. (APPI), Far East American and Liberty Woods International evaded the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China by transshipping their goods through Vietnam, the importers argued in two July 20 complaints at the Court of International Trade. The importers' six- and 10-count complaints against CBP over its Enforce and Protect Act investigation include claims the agency illegally initiated the investigation, violated the importers' due process rights and improperly found that all of its imports were covered merchandise (Far East American v. United States, CIT #22-00213) (American Pacific Plywood Inc. v. U.S., CIT #22-00214).
A case involving allegedly defective plywood should be dismissed from consideration at the Court of International Trade because the importer has failed to show evidence of actual defect or specific value lost, the government said in a July 18 cross-motion for summary judgement (Bral Corporation v. United States, CIT # 20-00154).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York: