On Oct. 15 the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Foreign Trade Zones Board issued the following notice for Oct. 16:
Two metropolitan Detroit residents face criminal charges after their arrest during an enforcement action targeting counterfeit air bags allegedly imported from China, said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Samar Ayoub, 39, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., and Hussein Jomaa, 30, of Dearborn, Mich., are charged in a criminal complaint with knowingly trafficking counterfeit merchandise, ICE said. Trafficking in counterfeit merchandise carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Adverse facts available (AFA) countervailing duty rates must be corroborated just as is the case with AFA antidumping duty rates, said the Court of International Trade, as it remanded the final results of the 2007 administrative review of certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India (C-533-821). CIT took up the issue after a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling in April overturned a CIT remand of an AFA rate applied to a subsidy benefit received by Essar Steel. CAFC said the ITA’s decision to apply an AFA rate was supported by substantial evidence, but the court did not rule on whether the ITA’s AFA rate was reasonable.
The Court of International Trade affirmed CBP’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule tariff classification of tuna imported by Del Monte from Thailand as packaged ‘in oil,’ despite containing at most 2.48 percent oil in the packaging, based on nearly hundred year-old appeals court precedent. CIT also affirmed CBP’s assessment of duties based on the invoice price for the tuna. Del Monte had argued that its Thai supplier did not comply with the terms of the purchase agreement, and later repaid the difference after importation, but CIT said the regulations are clear in requiring CBP to disregard any rebate of the price paid or payable after importation of merchandise.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website Oct. 15, 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://addcvd.cbp.gov. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)
The Departments of Agriculture and Homeland Security have made progress implementing the recommendations of a 2006 Government Accountability Study of the Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection program, but work remains to improve planning, data reliability, and the canine inspector program, GAO said in a report on the program. Allocation of scarce CBP resources based on port-specific risks could especially benefit from improved strategic planning and better data to analyze risk and effectiveness. The full report is available here. A one-page summary of the report is available here.
The Food and Drug Administration’s internal reorganization will streamline interactions between importers and FDA headquarters, but won’t have much impact on FDA’s operations in the field, according to several industry sources. The reorganization, announced in an internal FDA fact sheet dated Sept. 10, will create a new Office of Import Operations and Enforcement (OIOE). The new office, which will remain in the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), will combine the operational side of the FDA Division of Import Operations and Policy with the existing Office of Enforcement.
The International Trade Commission voted to institute an investigation of certain reduced folate nutraceutical products and l-methylfolate raw ingredients used therein. The products at issue in this investigation are nutraceutical products that contain reduced folates.
The International Trade Administration published notices in the Oct. 15 Federal Register on the following AD/CV proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):