The Court of International Trade denied importer Strategic Import Supply's motion for a reconsideration of its case over the proper countervailing duty rate for its tire imports in a Sept. 20 order. Finding that Strategic Import Supply didn't file a timely protest of CBP's decision to liquidate the imports of passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, Judge Stephen Vaden again dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction. Strategic Import Supply sought reconsideration after CBP granted a nearly identical protest to the one subject to Vaden's previous dismissal.
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.
Marco Dittrich, a Singapore-based importer, was fined $64,000 (in Singapore dollars) by the city-state's State Courts for evading Goods and Services Taxes on 46 shipments of bicycle frames and components, Singapore Customs said Sept. 17. The total amount of evaded GST was $13,483.89. Dittrich, the director of Singapore Tri-Global Pte. Ltd., pleaded guilty to one count under Singapore's Customs Act for undervaluing his import shipments. Under the Customs Act, fines can be levied “up to 20 times the amount of duty and GST evaded,” Singapore Customs said.
The Commerce Department released a final rule making extensive changes to its antidumping and countervailing duty regulations, including on scope and anti-circumvention inquiries. Currently scheduled for publication Sept. 20, the final rule is intended to “strengthen the administration and enforcement of AD/CVD laws, make such administration and enforcement more efficient, and to create new enforcement tools for Commerce to address circumvention and evasion of trade remedies.”
The Commerce Department was wrong to exclude sales made by an antidumping review respondent that were further assembled in a third country before being shipped to the U.S., in an AD duty review, plaintiff JA Solar said in its Sept. 15 complaint to the Court of International Trade. Commerce had "copious" amounts of evidence showing that the respondent knew that the final destination of the goods was the U.S., meaning the agency should have included them in the review, the complaint said (JA Solar International Limited, et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00514).
The Court of International Trade sustained the Commerce Department's final results of the third administrative review of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from Taiwan, in a Sept. 14 opinion. Chief Judge Mark Barnett found that Commerce's use of mandatory respondent Unicatch Industrial Co.'s above-cost home market sales to calculate normal value was legal, the agency's decision to not include Unicatch's antidumping duty deposits in the company's freight revenues was proper, and that Commerce's move to increase Unicatch's cost of production to account for purchases from an affiliated supplier at less than market value was appropriate.
Trade Law Daily is providing readers with some recent top stories. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Sept. 14 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):
The Commerce Department's use of adverse facts available when weighing Bosun Tool's country of origin information using a first-in-first-out (FIFO) methodology was justified, Justice Department said in Sept. 13 comments at the Court of International Trade (Diamond Sawblades Manufacturers' Coalition v. United States, CIT #17-00167).
Chinese exporter Yinfeng ripped the Commerce Department's decision to apply adverse facts available relating to the agency's inability to verify non-use of China's Export Buyer's Credit Program, in a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade. Commerce's use of AFA for the EBCP has been shot down repeatedly at CIT, yet the practice continues, Yinfeng said (Fujian Yinfeng Imp & Exp Trading Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #21-0088).
Kong Ming Jie, Singapore national and importer, was fined $50,000 by the Singapore State Courts for evading Goods and Services Taxes, submitting false declarations and failing to retain documents under the Customs Act, Singapore Customs said Sept. 10. Kong is the director of Nitecore Singapore Pte Ltd. and the only proprietor of Nitecore SG. Singapore Customs inspected a Nitecore shipment of LED flashlights and accessories at Changi Airfreight Centre in August 2019, finding that the declared value of the goods for one of the shipments was $400 but it was actually worth $23,336.47 (in Singapore dollars). For another shipment inspected the same month, Kong undervalued the goods by $8,000, Singapore Customs said. It said Kong pleaded guilty to five charges.