The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes Dec. 21 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 Foreign Trade Zones Board issued the following notices for Dec. 26:
The Bureau of Industry and Security denied the export privileges for five years of Henson Chua, a Philippine national, as well as the Celltron Marketing Company, following Chua’s 2011 conviction for the unauthorized temporary import of a controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Chua and Celltron will be denied persons until Nov. 8, 2016, BIS said. Chua had been sentenced to time served plus three years of supervised release, a $13,000 fine, and a $100 special assessment. He is also listed on the State Department’s Debarred List.
The Temrex Corp., a manufacturer of restorative and cosmetic products for dentistry, will pay $8,750, and its president and vice president for sales and marketing $5,250 each, to settle charges that they illegally exported items destined for Iran without the required Office of Foreign Assets Control license, in violation of the Iranian Transactions Regulations.
The Court of International Trade sustained the partial application of adverse facts available (AFA) to determine Mueller Comercial’s AD rate, despite Mueller’s full cooperation, in the 2008-09 antidumping administrative review of circular welded non-alloy steel pipe from Mexico (A-201-805). The International Trade Administration had used AFA on incomplete cost data needed from one of Mueller’s suppliers. CIT agreed with the ITA’s argument that the uncooperative supplier would have benefited from a lower AD rate without the partial application of AFA, and said its use was justified, despite the fact that Mueller cooperated.
The Court of International Trade ordered a customs broker to pay a $19,000 penalty for violations of several provisions of the Customs regulations, including failing to notify the importer of record when doing business with an unlicensed person; conducting business without a valid power of attorney; misclassification of entries; and failure to exercise due diligence and responsible supervision and control. The customs broker failed to respond to any of CBP’s pre-penalty notices, penalty notices, and final demands for payments, and did not respond to any notices or motions in this case, so was declared to be in default. As the defendant was in default, CIT took all of CBP’s factual allegations as true, and granted CBP’s motion to collect the penalties.
A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to CBP's website Dec. 21, 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://1.usa.gov/VxGCVA. (CBP occasionally adds backdated messages without otherwise indicating which message was added. ITT will include a message date in parentheses in such cases.)
Mexico's Diario Oficial of Dec. 21, lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:
Revisions to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule for 2013 may include modifications of provisions on Tariff Rate Quotas for Australian beef, as well as the addition of statistical suffixes for certain “certified organic” fruit, vegetable, and nut products, according to a 2013 version of the HTS prematurely posted to the International Trade Commission website. The mistakenly posted HTS was only available for a few hours on Dec. 20. The ITC’s HTS home page now displays the message: “the 2013 edition of the HTS was prematurely published on December 20, 2012. The complete 2013 edition will be published as soon as possible.” The changes would have been effective Jan. 1, 2013.
The International Trade Commission is publishing notices in the Dec. 21 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):