CBP has determined that C.I.S. Investments, doing business as Triangle Metals, evaded antidumping and countervailing duty orders on forged steel fittings from China, according to a Dec. 20 notice. The determination comes at the end of an Enforce and Protect Act investigation, which found that C.I.S. transshipped fittings through Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, did not declare that the merchandise was subject to AD/CVD orders upon entry, and made no cash deposits. CBP will require that for any imports of forged steel fittings from Sri Lanka, Thailand or Indonesia, C.I.S. deposit estimated duties at the time of entry, and CBP will evaluate the continuous bond and will require single transaction bonds as appropriate.
Country of origin cases
A World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel found the U.S. violated global trade rules by requiring goods made in Hong Kong to be marked as being made in China. Submitting its ruling Dec. 21, the three-arbitrator panel found the U.S. measures inconsistent with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, saying the U.S. failed to show the moves were made in response to an "emergency in international relations." The U.S. argued the change in the origin requirement was needed to safeguard American national security.
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 in a Dec. 20 opinion denied an injunction bid pending appeal from certain plaintiffs in an attorney conflict-of interest suit. After recently rejecting the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Judge Gary Katzmann this time rejected the injunction motion pending appeal since the appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "has not yet been noticed," but even if it had, the injunction "is unwarranted." Katzmann said that the plaintiffs fail to both show a "strong showing of success on the merits" and prove that they will suffer irreparable harm without the injunction.
Congress explicitly gave district courts jurisdiction over the intended U.S. prosecution of a sovereign-owned bank for evading U.S. sanctions, the government argued in a brief vying for jurisdiction for the case at the Supreme Court. The U.S. said that nothing in the common law or the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act prevents Turkish state-owned bank Halkbank "from facing criminal consequences for violating U.S. law." Allowing the "novel claim of immunity" to thwart the criminal prosecution of the bank "would be unprecedented" and is unsupported by the FSIA, since its "text, structure, and history demonstrate that it does not apply to criminal cases," the brief said.
The Department of Commerce preliminarily determined that certain types of truck wheels that Asia Wheel manufactures in its facilities in Thailand and exports to the U.S. are subject to the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on certain steel wheels 22.5 to 24.5 inches in diameter from China, according to a Dec. 13 preliminary scope ruling.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
CBP improperly found that importer Diamond Tools Technology made a "material and false" statement in the agency's Enforce and Protect Act evasion finding, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Dec. 16 opinion. Sending the case back to CBP again, Judge Timothy Reif ruled that the agency's use of the EAPA statute is inconsistent with the law's language and structure, and even if its use was legal, its interpretation of the statute is not entitled to deference. Diamond Tools properly classified its merchandise as not covered merchandise given the guidance it had at the time, the judge said.
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
China officially requested dispute consultations with the U.S. at the World Trade Organization Dec. 15 over American export controls on certain semiconductors, the WTO announced. China, which announced the move earlier in the week (see 2212120061), said the restrictions violate Article XXII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT), Article XXII of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, Article 8 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures and Article 64.1 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.