U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued CSMS #11-000247 at 5:30 p.m. eastern time on October 12, 2011 to announce an emergency ACS Production outage that could impact ACE Production, that was expected to last about 3 hours. CBP then issued CSMS #11-000248 at 7 p.m. that stated the ACS Production system was again available, and that all messages transmitted during the outage had been held in the queue and were processed. The agency added that there was some impact to ACE functionality.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the Area Port of Boston has issued a Public Information Notice announcing that due to the low number of registrations, the afternoon session (1:00-2:30 pm) for the October 13, 2011 Boston Trade Day has been canceled. All tickets for the afternoon session will be honored during the morning session (10:00-11:30 am). More information is available here. Public Information Notice is available via email by sending a request to documents@brokerpower.com.

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted to CBP's Web site as of October 11, 2011, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. These messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its Public Automated Commercial System FIRMS (Facilities Information and Resources Management Systems) report that is organized by port code and alphabetically by company name.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted an updated version of its CF 1400 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Entrances) - an electronic query report for CF 1400 of the Vessel Management System (VMS), in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by entrances. CBP has also posted an updated CF 1401 (Record of Vessel in Foreign Trade Clearances) - an electronic query report for CF 1401 of the VMS, in accordance with 19 CFR 4.95, organized by clearances.

In the October 5, 2011 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 45, No. 41), CBP published two notices that propose to revoke a ruling and similar treatment regarding the classification of homeopathic remedies and a terracotta grill.

In the October 5, 2011 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin (Vol. 45, No. 41), CBP published a notice that proposes to modify a ruling and similar treatment relating to the duty rate of Acetyl L-Carnitine Hydrochloride.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued CSMS #11-000245 to inform the trade community of an updated version of its bill form (CBP Form 6084). CBP also states that it will no longer be mailing out the pink carbon forms. A sample bill form (dated 07/11) is available here.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued CSMS #11-000243 as a reminder on reporting sets that are classifiable in accordance with HTS General Rules of Interpretation 3(b) or 3(c). CBP states that the tariff number from which the rate of duty is derived for the set should be reported in column 30, preceded by an SPI of "X." Each article in the set (including the article designated with a prefix of "X") should also be reported on a separate line as if it were separately classified, preceded by an SPI of "V." The quantity and value attributed to each article associated with the "V" SPI should also be reported.

Speaking on behalf of the NCBFAA ACE Strategy Task Group, NCBFAA President Jeffrey Coppersmith stated his strong belief that it is no longer a question of whether to migrate to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), but when, and that when is now. Regardless of emotions concerning the pace of development, it isn’t feasible to wait for ACE to be finished before attempting to use it nor is it rational to continue to believe that it will be abandoned. While much work remains to be done, he stated that CBP has recently begun to show good progress and has adopted essentially all of the recommendations for functional development outlined in the NCBFAA White Papers. It is time for the brokerage industry to support that development.