The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Feb. 24 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
Neither importer Cyber Power Systems (USA) Inc. nor the U.S. succeeded in persuading the Court of International Trade that their side was right in a tiff over the country of origin for shipments of uninterruptible power supplies and a surge voltage protector. Judge Leo Gordon, in a Feb. 24 order, denied both parties' motions for judgment, ordering the litigants to pick dates on which to set up a trial.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The World Trade Organization's 12th Ministerial Conference has been set has been set for the week of June 13 in Geneva, the WTO said Feb. 23. Following Switzerland's easing of COVID-19 restrictions, WTO members at a meeting of the General Council decided to reschedule the ministerial, which had already been rescheduled to begin at the end of November 2021. Originally the conference was to be held in June 2020 in Kazakhstan. MC12 is seen as a key summit for the resolution of many issues in international trade, including the WTO Appellate Body and fishery subsidies.
CBP began a formal investigation of 10 companies for allegedly evading antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders by importing Chinese quartz countertops. In the Enforce and Protect Act investigation, CBP will consider whether Big D, Colorquartz, Cumberland, Durian, Flowery Stone, Kat, Kingway, Nio, Nomadic and Opal evaded AD order A-570-084 and CVD order C-570-085 by transshipping Chinese quartz countertops through Malaysia.
World Trade Organization members initiated membership consideration for Turkmenistan at a Feb. 23 General Council meeting, the WTO said. Turkmenistan's application, officially received in November, originally was set to be considered at the 12th Ministerial Conference the next month until the conference was postponed due to COVID-19. In the meeting's stead, the General Council agreed to set up a working party to oversee accession negotiations with the Central Asian country.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade denied both importer Cyber Power Systems (USA) Inc.'s and the DOJ's motions for judgment in a case over the country of origin of Cyber Power's uninterruptible power supplies and surge voltage protector, ordering that the case go to trial. For these imports, many of their components came from China but were completed in the Philippines. Judge Leo Gordon said that the U.S. failed to show that the process in the Philippines constituted a "simple assembly" but also that Cyber Power failed to show that the goods were "substantially transformed" in the Philippines enough change their origin. The judge gave the parties until March 7 to submit a proposed scheduling order to lay out the next steps for a trial.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
A Commerce Department scope ruling improperly found two-ply hardwood plywood falls under the antidumping duty and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China because the scope language clearly says that subject merchandise consists of a minimum of three plies, said three companies, Vietnam Finewood, Far East American and Liberty Woods, in a Feb. 18 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Vietnam Finewood Company Ltd. v. U.S., CIT #22-00049).