Supreme Court Declines Hearing of Ford Tariff Engineering Case
The Supreme Court June 29 declined to hear Ford Motor Co.’s appeal of a case on the propriety of its tariff engineering of vans to obtain a lower rate for passenger vehicles. The high court’s order denies Ford’s petition for…
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certiorari without any explanation, per its usual practice, leaving in place a June 2019 Federal Circuit decision. The appeals court had held that Ford vans imported with passenger seats, then stripped down right after importation to turn them into cargo vans, are classifiable as cargo vans because their use after importation is a factor in their tariff classification, even if the relevant subheadings aren’t “use” provisions (see 1906070061). Ford and several allied trade groups had said that expansion in the consideration of use in tariff classification creates uncertainty for importers by making tariff classification more unpredictable (see 1908070066).