The Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking comments on a provisionally-accepted Settlement Agreement with E&B Giftware LLC which includes a civil penalty of $550,000, with an agreement to suspend a portion of that penalty if certain conditions are met. The agreement would settle staff allegations that E&B Giftware failed to immediately notify CPSC of a defect in certain exercise balls that it imported and distributed for several years, as required by federal law.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recall for December 21, 2011:
The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements has determined that certain cotton/nylon/spandex raschel knit open work crepe printed fabric classified in HTS 6005.24.00 cannot be supplied in commercial quantities in a timely manner by Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) countries. The product will be added to the list in Annex 3.25 of the DR-CAFTA in unrestricted quantities.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission published notice of the following voluntary recalls for December 20, 2011:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that on December 16, 2011, the Commission voted 4-0 to publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) aimed at improving the safety of gel fuels and firepots. The ANPR was prompted by the number of serious injuries and deaths that have occurred to consumers using these products. The ANPR will invite written comments from the public regarding the risks of injury associated with gel fuels and firepots and ways to address these risks. It will also alert industry to the possibility of federal standards being introduced for the labeling or performance of a product, or a ban if no adequate standard can be found. The process gives manufacturers a chance to present evidence to show they have set up their own effective industry standards.
The duty-free fiscal year 2012 tariff preference levels for certain knit and woven apparel articles under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership for Encouragement Act of 2008 (Haiti HOPE II), as amended by the Haiti Economic Lift Program Act of 2010 (Haiti HELP),1 began on October 1, 2011 and were 5.31% and 9.00% filled, respectively, as of December 12, 2011. Due to resource constraints, CBP is no longer issuing notice of unchanged TPL levels such as these for FY 2012.2
The International Trade Administration has issued a notice announcing the 12-month "2012" valued-added tariff preference level for certain apparel imported directly from Haiti (HTS 9820.61.25 for entry specific claims or 9820.61.30 for aggregate claims) eligible to receive duty-free treatment under the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Through Partnership for Encouragement Acts of 2006 and 2008 (HOPE I and II), as amended by the Haiti Economic Lift Program Act of 2010 (HELP).
The Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation has announced Special Import Quota #17 for upland cotton that was established on December 15, 2011, allowing importation of 14,594,057 kilograms (67,030 bales) of upland cotton. It will apply to upland cotton purchased not later than March 13, 2012, and entered into the U.S. not later than June 11, 2012. The quota is equivalent to one week's consumption of cotton by domestic mills at the seasonally-adjusted average rate for the period May 2011 through July 2011, the most recent three months for which data are available.
The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements has determined that certain cotton/nylon/spandex raschel knit open work crepe, piece dyed fabric classified in HTS 6005.22.00 cannot be supplied in commercial quantities in a timely manner by Dominican Republic-Central America-U.S. Free Trade Agreement countries. The product will be added to the list in Annex 3.25 of the DR-CAFTA in unrestricted quantities.
The Court of International Trade has ruled in U.S. v. Inner Beauty Int'l (USA) Ltd., that Inner Beauty must pay a civil penalty of $39,549 for filing documents falsely stating that the country of origin of certain entries of women's undergarments was Hong Kong, instead of China. The CIT found Inner Beauty made an inadvertent error and was culpable for negligence because at the time of the entries, such merchandise was subject to an import quota.