CBP said in a customs ruling earlier this month that luxury goods sold between a related European exporter and U.S. importer weren't subject to restrictions on their use that barred the use of the transaction method. In addition, CBP excluded service fees between the companies from the actual price of the goods since the fees didn't pertain to the goods' importation, and the agency found that the relationship between the parties didn't preclude the use of the transaction value method to appraise the value of the goods.
The Commerce Department reconsidered on remand its model match hierarchy in the antidumping duty investigation on superabsorbent polymers (SAP) from South Korea, opting to go with the hierarchy made of centrifugal retention capacity "in 6 g/g increments" it used in the investigation's preliminary determination but not in the final decision (The Ad Hoc Coalition of American SAP Producers v. United States, CIT # 23-00010).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The EU General Court on June 12 rejected Russian investment fund VEB.RF's application to be removed from the bloc's Russia sanctions regime, according to an unofficial translation. The European Council sanctioned the financial institution for helping undermine the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine and providing material support to "Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea or the destabilization of Eastern Ukraine."
The EU General Court on June 12 rejected Syrian businessman Issam Shammout's challenge to his designation under the bloc's Syria sanctions regime. Shammout, an executive for airline company Cham Wings Airlines and the Shammout Group, was sanctioned due to his position as a "leading businessperson operating in Syria."
Sergey Nefedov of Anchorage and Mark Shumovich of Bellevue, Washington, were charged June 11 with conducting a scheme to illegally export nearly $500,000 worth of snowmobilers and associated parts from the U.S. to Russia, DOJ announced.
A Spanish aluminum exporter argued June 11 that the Commerce Department is unlawfully restricting its statutory requirement to consider levels of trade when calculating normal value by requiring there be “substantial differences,” rather than plain “differences,” in those levels to trigger that analysis (Compania Valencia De Aluminio Baux, S.L.U. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00259).
Matt Lapin, former partner at Porter Wright, has joined Wiley Rein as special counsel in the international trade and national security practice groups, the firm announced. Lapin's practice centers on "supply chain risk, export controls, economic sanctions, customs law, foreign investment, and anti-corruption," the firm said.
Chinese citizen Zhenyu "Bill" Wang and Texas resident Daniel Ray Lane were sentenced to 45 months in prison for trying to violate U.S. sanctions and commit money laundering as part of a scheme to "transact in sanctioned petroleum and launder the proceeds," DOJ announced.
The Court of International Trade on June 10 signaled that CBP's practice of not notifying companies when they become subject to interim Enforce and Protect Act investigations could give rise to a due process claim should the company sufficiently allege that it suffered "specific enough harm." However, the court found that importer Phoenix Metal failed to allege that harm with enough specificity.