The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The U.S. opposed exporter Camel Group's motion to unredact part of the record in the company's case against its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, arguing on July 10 that disclosure of information deemed confidential "would substantially harm the Government's" law enforcement efforts in applying the UFLPA. The government told the Court of International Trade it has a "strong interest in protecting the law enforcement sensitive information," while Camel has "no compelling argument as to why disclosure to the public, or to Camel, as opposed to confidential disclosure, is necessary" (Camel Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
The Commerce Department showed its work in finding that exporter East Sea Seafoods is independent of the Vietnamese government and thus eligible for a separate rate under an antidumping duty order on Vietnamese catfish in the 2019-20 administrative review of the AD order, the Court of International Trade held on July 10. Judge M. Miller Baker also held that Commerce properly assigned exporter Green Farms Seafood Joint Stock Company an AD rate taken from a simple average of respondent NTSF Seafood's zero percent rate and East Sea's adverse facts available rate.
The Commerce Department failed to correct for respondent Dongkuk S&C's conversion costs and improperly relied on Dongkuk's information from a past antidumping duty review as the basis for constructed value ratios, petitioner Wind Tower Trade Coalition argued in a July 9 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The petitioner brought the suit to contest the 2022-23 review of the AD order on utility scale wind towers from South Korea (Wind Tower Trade Coalition v. United States, CIT # 25-00104).
Five different groups of amici on July 8 filed briefs in the case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the legality of President Donald Trump's tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. All five briefs argued against the tariffs, though they differed in their specific approach or legal arguments (V.O.S. Selections v. Donald J. Trump, Fed. Cir. # 25-1812).
Animal feed additive importer Zoetis’ products were properly classified by CBP as feed additives, not antibiotics, the U.S. said in a June 30 brief (Zoetis Services, v. United States, CIT # 22-00056).
Neal Katyal, former acting solicitor general in the Barack Obama administration, will argue against the legality of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on July 31. The Liberty Justice Center, the conservative advocacy group that initially brought the case on behalf of various importers, tapped Katyal to argue the case at the Federal Circuit (V.O.S. Selections v. Donald J. Trump, Fed. Cir. # 25-1812).
No part of an e-tailing franchise fee payment that a buyer makes to a seller should be included in the price actually paid, according to a March 6 CBP ruling. This also applies to situations where an e-tailing fee payment is added as a statutory addition or is tacked on to what is payable for the merchandise, the ruling determined.
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated on June 26 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):
After the Commerce Department chose on remand to again directly value antidumping duty review mandatory respondent Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies’ energy costs in an AD administrative review, the exporter said June 20 in response that the department just “recycled” its initial results (Neimenggu Fufeng Biotechnologies Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00068).