A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website May 30, 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 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.)
Two importers were released after a year and a half in jail, following the government’s voluntary dismissal of a criminal case in Florida Middle District Court. The two men, Chin Shih Chou, of Taiwan, and Qiao Chu, of China, had along with a U.S. citizen been charged over an alleged scheme to import honey and misidentify it as rice syrup to avoid paying antidumping duties. But after the CBP Port of Savannah test that identified the product as honey was thrown out, and a German test showed the product was in fact rice syrup as the defendants claimed, the U.S. attorney on May 8 dropped the charges.
The International Trade Commission is publishing notices in the May 30 Federal Register on the following AD/CV injury, Section 337 patent, and other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will appear in another ITT article):
The International Trade Commission is asking for comments by about June 8 on public interest factors arising from Nokia’s May 23 patent complaint on cellphones from HTC. Nokia seeks to block imports of infringing HTC cellphone models, including the HTC One S, One V, One X, Evo 4G LTE, Droid Incredible 4G LTE, Droid DNA, One X+, One VX, First, and One, through issuance of cease and desist and limited exclusion orders (see 13052923). It also requests the limited exclusion order block imports of components of the infringing cellphones, such as chipsets, to prevent evasion of any import ban.
The Commerce Department published notices in the May 30 Federal Register on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department announced its final determinations in its antidumping duty investigations on xanthan gum from Austria and China (A-433-811, A-570-985), in a fact sheet dated May 29. The agency found AD rates for Austrian companies of 29.98 percent, and AD rates for Chinese companies ranging from 15.09 to 154.07 percent. CP Kelco requested the investigation in June 2012 (see 12060621). The International Trade Commission is set to make its final injury determination July 12.
The Commerce Department will collect countervailing duties on frozen warmwater shrimp from China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, but will leave alone shrimp imports from Ecuador and Indonesia as a result of negative subsidy determinations, it said in a fact sheet. In its preliminary determinations, announced May 29, the agency found CV rates of 5.76 percent for Chinese companies; 5.72 to 6.1 percent for Indian companies; 10.8 to 62.74 for Malaysian companies; de minimis to 2.09 percent for Thai companies; and 5.08 to 7.05 percent for Vietnamese companies. The final determinations in these countervailing duty investigations are due in August.
Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the following voluntary recalls May 29:
On May 29 the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
On May 29, the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports: