The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 2 affirmed a lower court ruling that dinnerware decorated with Christmas or Thanksgiving themes are not classifiable in a special duty-free subheading for articles used in religious or cultural rituals. Though it faulted the Court of International Trade’s narrow interpretation of what constitutes a ritual, it still found WWRD’s Christmas and Thanksgiving dinnerware should not be classified alongside items with more specific purposes like menorahs and communion cups.
Instructions not to assess antidumping duties on “unliquidated” entries also apply to entries that have been liquidated but not finalized because they are still protestable, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a March 30 decision. Overturning a Court of International Trade ruling from 2016 (see 1610250042), the Federal Circuit held that the Commerce Department’s revocation of antidumping duties on German steel may apply to several of ThyssenKrupp’s entries that had already been liquidated by the time the revocation was announced.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 19-25:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 12-18:
The National Marine Fisheries Service on March 16 announced the release of its first “List of Foreign Fisheries” that must meet comparability guidelines by 2022 or else have their fish products become ineligible for importation. The new list puts foreign fisheries in one of two categories -- “export” and “exempt” -- that have different marine mammal protection requirements these fisheries and their home countries must meet before being declared eligible for importation.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of March 5-11:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 26 - March 4:
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 19-25:
CBP’s weekend deployment of drawback, reconciliation and liquidation in ACE was “successful,” though some hurdles remain before systems are running as intended, CBP officials said on a pair of phone calls with trade stakeholders held Feb. 26. The deployment marked a “significant milestone,” being the last of the major scheduled “core” ACE deployments, said Deborah Augustin, executive director of CBP’s Trade Transformation Office. “At this time, all import manifest, cargo release, post-release and export functionality we had scheduled for delivery in 'core' ACE is now available in ACE,” she said.
Drawback filers will likely face a period of at least four to six months under interim procedures once drawback transitions to ACE over the Feb. 24 weekend, Michael Cerny of Sandler Travis said during a Feb. 23 webinar. Though CBP finished talks with the trade community nearly a year ago, proposed regulations drafted by CBP on drawback processes under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 continue to languish in the interagency review process, so filers will begin life in the new framework under a “draft guidance” issued by CBP on Feb. 9 (see 1802120020).