On April 4 the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports:
The Foreign Trade Zones Board issued the following notices for April 7:
An importer’s request that CBP disclose business confidential information for use in a tariff classification lawsuit has been put on hold by the Court of International Trade. FDK America is asking for a court order to make CBP provide documents underlying a 2002 customs ruling requested by another company called Nortel. FDK says the 2002 ruling is directly related to its own challenge of a 2011 ruling on the tariff classification of optical isolators it imported from Sri Lanka. But Nortel has since gone bankrupt, and neither CBP nor FDK have been able get an answer from the now-defunct company on whether or not CBP can disclose the information. FDK said the technology revealed by the supporting documentation is so old that there’s no way its disclosure could hurt Nortel. It also said its attempts to date to get permission should suffice. But CIT wanted a more formal attempt before it gives away Nortel’s confidential information, and said it will wait for the result of a subpoena.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit breathed new life into the meat industry’s challenge to the Agriculture Department’s new country of origin labeling (COOL) regulations, announcing on April 4 that the court will take another look at the case. The decision to rehear the case “en banc” means that the D.C. Circuit’s March 28 decision to refuse the American Meat Institute’s request for an injunction blocking the regulations has been vacated (see 14033102). Instead of the three judge panel that issued the original decision, the case will now be decided by a vote from all eligible judges of the court. There are currently 11 active judges. The court order announcing the rehearing says it will pay particular attention to the issue of “whether, under the First Amendment, judicial review of mandatory disclosure of ‘purely factual and uncontroversial’ commercial information, compelled for reasons other than preventing decision, can properly proceed … .”
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the Commerce Department posted to CBP's website April 4, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at http://adcvd.cbp.dhs.gov/adcvdweb.
A patchwork of state chemical laws is creating a minefield of regulation for manufacturers and importers of consumer products, according to lawyers and industry groups. Maine, Washington, and California have already passed legislation that set new requirements for consumer products containing “chemicals of concern.” Consumer groups say the laws are necessary because of a lack of urgency in D.C. on Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform. Two federal bills currently in Congress aim to reform TSCA and preempt the state regulations. But consumer groups say the laws don’t go far enough, and oppose overruling the new state requirements.
The International Trade Commission published notices in the April 4 Federal Register on the following AD/CV injury, Section 337 patent, and other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will be in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department issued its quarterly list of (i) completed antidumping and countervailing duty scope rulings and (ii) anticircumvention determinations. The following list covers completed scope and anticircumvention rulings for the period Oct. 1, 2013, through Dec. 31, 2013:
The Commerce Department issued the final results of the antidumping duty administrative review and a concurrent new shipper review on frozen fish fillets from Vietnam (A-552-801). The agency lowered AD rates for most companies under review. These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD duties on importers for entries between Aug. 1, 2011 and July 31, 2012. New AD duty cash deposit rates set in this review will take effect April 7.
The Commerce Department is ending its countervailing duty investigations on monosodium glutamate from China and Indonesia (C-570-993, C-560-827), after Ajinomoto North America (AJINA) withdrew its requests for CV duties in early March (see 14031035). Commerce says is the only domestic producer of MSG, so no other U.S. companies opposed termination of the proceedings. Commerce is ending suspension of liquidation for CV duty purposes for MSG from China. The agency doesn’t need to for Indonesia, because liquidation was never suspended in the first place.