On Jan. 21-22 the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes Jan. 22 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 Office of Management and Budget approved Export Control Reform’s final “beast” rule, as it is known at the Bureau of Industry and Security, on Jan. 18. The final rule will be part of the first 38(f) Congressional notification sent by the State Department. It includes the final versions of the transition rule, the “specially designed” definition, and transfers of gas turbine engines and aircraft from the U.S. Munitions List to the Commerce Control List.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website Jan. 22, 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.)
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should uphold the lower court’s dismissal of the Rack Room Shoes v. U.S. test case on gender discrimination in Harmonized Tariff Schedule provisions, because male and female provisions in the HTS rationally differentiate between products, not people, and were put in place to meet trade policy objectives, said the government in its Jan. 17 reply brief. CAFC’s ruling on the challenge will have a hand in determining the outcome of over 160 similar cases currently before the Court of International Trade.
Mexico's Diario Oficial of Jan. 22, lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
The International Trade Commission is publishing notices in the Jan. 22 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):
E.J Brooks Company is requesting the International Trade Commission bar imports of sealing rings for utility meters that it says infringe its patents. The Jan. 18 petition accused Mao Dah Enterprise of Taiwan of importing the infringing products, which are used to secure electric, gas and water utility meters and show evidence of tampering. According to Brooks, Mao Dah was originally contracted to manufacture utility meter parts, but was not authorized to make sealing rings. Mao Dah later obtained the design for the sealing rings, and began manufacturing the product and exporting it to the U.S. Brooks is requesting the ITC issue a general exclusion order on imported sealing rings, or a limited exclusion order and cease and desist order against Mao Dah if the ITC finds a general order to be too broad.
The International Trade Administration published notices in the Jan. 22 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):
The International Trade Administration initiated countervailing duty investigations of certain frozen warmwater shrimp from China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, it said in a Jan. 18 fact sheet. Imports of the merchandise totaled $4,149,341,000 in value in 2012, with Thai imports accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total value. The seven countries covered by these investigations collectively account for 85 percent of U.S. shrimp imports and more than three-quarters of the U.S. market, the Coalition of Frozen Shrimp Industries said in its request for the investigations.