Canada-based Midwest-CBK's sales to U.S. customers weren't "for export" to the U.S. and therefore don't have a "transaction value" for the assignment of import duties, the company told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Filing a reply brief on July 19, Midwest-CBK said the goods should have been "appraised via deductive value" and that its goods were deemed liquidated since CBP didn't have an adequate basis to extend the liquidation of its entries (Midwest-CBK v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 24-1142).
Customs Duty
A Customs Duty is a tariff or tax which a country imposes on goods when they are transported across international borders. Customs Duties are used to protect countries' economies, residents, jobs, and environments, by limiting the flow of imported merchandise, especially restricted and prohibited goods, into the country. The Customs Duty Rate is a percentage determined by the value of the article purchased in the foreign country and not based on quality, size, or weight.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated June 28 - July 21 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):
Importers Yellow Bird and Vantage Point filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade July 18 arguing that a 1955 Jaguar race car, driven in competitions by multiple Australian racing drivers, is a collector's item, not a used motor vehicle (Yellowbird Enterprises v. U.S., CIT # 24-00121).
Trade ministers from the U.S., the EU, France, Italy, the U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan reiterated that they are committed to revising the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement, monitoring and negotiating functions, and to restoring a fully functioning dispute settlement system by year-end.
Importer Atlas Power is attempting to use a U.S. request to withdraw an admission of fact in a customs case to root out the government's "alternative classification" of the graphics processing units at issue, the U.S. said following Atlas' opposition to the U.S. motion (Atlas Power v. United States, CIT # 23-00084).
The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 doesn't require payouts of interest assessed after liquidation, known as delinquency interest, to affected domestic producers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said July 15. Judges Alan Lourie, Kara Stoll and Tiffany Cunningham said that the statute only provides for interest that's "earned on" antidumping and countervailing duties and "assessed under" the associated AD or CVD order.
The government told the Court of International Trade that importer Precision Components' low-carbon steel blanks fall within the scope of the antidumping duty order on tapered roller bearings from China. Filing a reply brief on July 12, the U.S. said Precision conceded that its blanks described in the 2023 scope ruling request are plainly covered by a 2020 ruling similarly finding the blanks to fall under the scope of the order (Precision Components v. United States, CIT # 23-00218).
The U.S. is seeking over $1.1 million in unpaid antidumping and countervailing duties plus a $2 million civil penalty against importer Forest Group USA and its alleged successor company, Drapery Hardware USA, the government said in a customs penalty suit filed July 10 (U.S. v. Forest Group USA, CIT # 24-00117).
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 11 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Court of International Trade on June 17 (see 2406170037) -- in an opinion released publicly July 10 -- upheld a CBP finding that six companies didn’t evade antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China by transshipping them through the Dominican Republic. Judge Richard Eaton explained that CBP had reasonably reinterpreted record evidence within the context of other information it had failed to consider previously.