The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
Attorney Jon Yormick took 29 cases with him when he moved from Flannery Georgalis to create his own firm, Yormick Law LLC, his office confirmed with Trade Law Daily. Yormick began the process of filing notices of attorney substitutions in the cases, all of which are attached to the massive Section 301 litigation. The 29 cases involve 36 total companies that migrated with Yormick. The firm was founded on Jan. 1 as a relaunch of Yormick's small firm practice, last referred to as Law Offices of Jon P. Yormick Co., which existed from 1995-2019.
Imported glass mosaic tiles from China should have been granted Section 301 tariff exclusions due to their size, said importer Anatolia Tile & Stone in a May 31 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Anatolia is challenging CBP's denial of 42 protests, which sought to remove the 25% duty assigned by CBP at liquidation. The company asked the court to order CBP to reliquidate the entries and refund any excess duties paid with interest (Anatolia Tile & Stone v. U.S., CIT # 21-00245).
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The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Any plaintiff in the massive Section 301 litigation looking to dismiss their case must comply with the court's rules to file a stipulation of dismissal signed by all parties who have appeared in the case, the Court of International Trade said in a text-only order. The court clarified that this rule, USCIT Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), applies in the present action since the U.S. filed a Master Answer in the overarching test case, meaning the answer is considered to be filed in each Section 301 case "now pending or hereafter filed" in the court. Certain companies have begun dismissing their challenges to the China tariffs following the trade court's ruling that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not violate the law when implementing them (see 2303170063) (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT # 21-00052).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated May 22 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):
Importer DS Services on May 19 asked the Court of International Trade to dismiss a case it brought challenging the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's decision not to reinstate a Section 301 tariff exclusion on water coolers even after the only opposing party on record withdrew its opposition comments. The company argued USTR violated the Administrative Procedure Act because the agency failed to both explain its decision and to back it with substantial evidence. USTR then requested a voluntary remand to reconsider (see 2209010023) but stuck by its decision in its December remand results (see 2212150043). DS Services declined to comment on the dismissal request (DS Services of America v. U.S., CIT # 22-00157).
Actuator cable assemblies assembled in Mexico from Chinese motors and various parts from China, Taiwan, the U.S. and Mexico are products of China based on the motor's predetermined end use, CBP said in a recent ruling -- the first publicly released that cites the Court of International Trade's recent decision in an origin case involving Cyber Power (see 2302270064).