Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the following voluntary recalls May 16:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a proposed rule on safety standards for carriages and strollers. The proposal is based on the voluntary standard developed by ASTM International, ASTM F833-13, “Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Carriages and Strollers,” with a proposed additional requirement and test method to address scissoring, pinching, or shearing hazards at the hinge link of 2D fold strollers, CPSC said. ASTM F833-13 includes carriages and strollers, as well as convertible carriages/strollers, so the proposed rule would cover all of these product types, it said. Comments are due by about Aug. 3. The ASTM standard is copyrighted, but can be viewed as a read-only document during the comment period (here).
On May 16 the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
On May 16, the Foreign Agricultural Service posted the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes May 16 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service revised export requirements and plant lists for the following countries for May 10-16:
The Foreign Trade Zones Board issued the following notices for May 17:
“Safe berth warranties” are an express assurance of a ship’s safety when coming into a port, and not just a promise that the guarantor will perform due diligence, said the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as it overturned a lower court’s judgment against the owner of an oil tanker associated with a spill. Frescati Shipping Company is attempting to recoup some of the $180 million it paid out in cleanup costs and ship damages after a 2004 oil spill in the Delaware River near Paulsboro, N.J. The appeals court also found that Frescati could benefit from the safe berth warranty, even though it was not a party to the original agreement. Furthermore, the “named port exception” to safe berth warranties does not apply to hazards that are unknown to parties and that are not reasonably foreseeable, the 3rd Circuit said, and so does not apply in this case where a submerged ship anchor caused the spill.
The antidumping duty orders on ball bearings from Japan and the United Kingdom are set to be reinstated, after the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided May 16 to reverse several lower court rulings. The Court of International Trade remands had resulted in the International Trade Commission changing its affirmative injury determinations from its sunset reviews to negative ones. That led to revocation of the ball bearings orders for Japan and the U.K. in July 2011. But the appeals court said that, contrary to the lower court’s findings, the ITC injury findings were supported by record evidence, and should have stood.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website May 16, 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.)