The Court of International Trade in a Feb. 1 order dismissed a customs case filed by California Manufacturing and Engineering Co. for lack of prosecution. The action challenged CBP's denial of its protest claiming that the importer's electric aerial work platforms should be classified under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 8427.10.8010 rather than 8427.90.0000, qualifying for exclusions from the Section 301 tariffs under secondary subheading 9903.88.19. The case previously was placed on the customs case management calendar and not removed before the expiration of the "applicable period of time of removal" (California Manufacturing and Engineering Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00028).
Sunnyvale Seafood has dropped two cases at the Court of International Trade concerning imported fish fillets brought in 2021, according to two separate motions filed Jan. 31. The cases challenged CBP's denial of Sunnyvale's protests over the applicability of Section 301 tariffs to its frozen tilapia fillets imported under subheading 0304.61.0000. Sunnyvale had argued that it should have been excluded from Section 301 tariffs via a product exclusion under subheading 9903.88.43. Sunnyvale did not comment when asked about the dismissals (SSC, Inc. v. United States, CIT # 21-00024, -00555).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Jan. 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):
The following lawsuit was recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Counterweights for mini excavators should be subject to Section 301 tariffs because they qualify as parts for "backhoes," the government argued in a Jan. 23 brief at the Court of International Trade. DOJ asked the court to deny plaintiff Norca Engineered Products' Nov. 3 motion for summary judgment and to find that the counterweights are backhoe parts and therefore not subject to a Section 301 exclusion (Norca Engineered Products v. U.S., CIT #21-00305).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Jan. 18 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 Court of International Trade in a Jan. 17 order dismissed two customs cases seeking the retroactive application of Section 301 exclusions. Given the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's finding in ARP Materials v. U.S., which said that an importer needs a protest with CBP to retroactively apply Section 301 exclusions (see 2209060035), the trade court dismissed the two cases -- from Poppin and Lighting Partners Jax. Both actions sought to establish jurisdiction at the court under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction, as opposed to Section 1581(a) (Poppin v. United States, CIT # 20-00158) (Lighting Partners Jax v. United States, CIT # 20-03529).
The Customs Rulings Online Search System (CROSS) was updated Jan. 11 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):