The Bureau of Industry and Security will hold a webinar May 29 at 2:30 p.m. on certain provisions of the final rules on initial implementation of export control reform. The webinar will take the place of the normal Wednesday teleconference held by Assistant Secretary Kevin Wolf. Topics will include new provisions with respect to de minimis and the foreign direct product rule under the Export Administration Regulations, which will become effective October 15, 2013. BIS is charging $35 for the webinar. Register (here).
Customs reauthorization legislation - an actual, tangible bill - is necessary to help shift CBP's focus back to trade facilitation and codify progress the agency has already made, Senators and industry representatives said at a May 22 hearing on S-662, the customs bill introduced by Finance Committee leaders in March. "The real question is how we reinvigorate this commitment to the trade side of CBP," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., at the Finance Committee hearing. Senators have tried politely asking CBP to do this, through letters and in hearings, but "that hasn't worked," Wyden said. "That's why we felt we needed to have an actual piece of legislation."
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court decision affirming the non-individual separate rate calculated for Yangzhou Bestpak in the antidumping duty investigation on narrow woven ribbons with woven selvedge from China (A-570-952). The Commerce Department had assigned Yangzhou Bestpak an AD rate based on a simple average of the two mandatory respondents’ AD rates. One of the mandatory respondents had a de minimis AD rate, while the other had been assigned an adverse facts available rate because of noncooperation, which meant Yangzhou Bestpak’s simple average AD rate was half of the AFA rate, despite the company’s cooperation.
More resources are needed for federal agencies to fully implement the 2008 amendments to the Lacey Act, though agencies have already focused on educating importers about the new declaration requirements, crafting exclusions, and an creating online database for importers, representatives from Animal Plant and Health Inspection Services and U.S. Fish and Wildlife told a House Subcommittee May 16.
The Commerce Department’s April 30 decision to impose antidumping duties on imports of hardwood and decorative plywood from China threatens to disrupt supply chains for industries that consume the product, said the International Wood Products Association (here). “While the [IWPA] counts among its members American importers -- many of whom trade in this product -- the effects of these duties will not be confined to the import community,” it said.
The Commerce Department made a preliminary affirmative antidumping determination that hardwood and decorative plywood from China (A-570-986) is being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value. The agency found preliminary AD rates of de minimis to 63.96 percent. Cash deposit requirements are effective May 3 for all companies that were assigned positive dumping margins.
The Commerce Department announced it has preliminary found dumping of imports of hardwood and decorative plywood from China (A-570-986), and will require antidumping duty cash deposits on entries of the merchandise. Entries of hardwood and decorative plywood from China are already subject to countervailing duty cash deposits (see 13031312). Imports produced and exported by the mandatory respondents, Linyi San Fortune Wood and Jianyang Group, will not be subject to the AD cash deposit requirement because the Commerce Department preliminarily found de minimis AD rates. Other companies will be subject to either a 22.14 or 63.96 percent preliminary AD rate.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 15-19 in case they were missed.
The first final rules detailing U.S. Munitions List-Commerce Control List moves, released by the State and Commerce Departments April 16, include edits to three USML categories and the ensuing creation of 10 new Export Control Classification Numbers. The rule also includes transition elements (see 13041518) and a new specially designed definition (see 13041616).
The 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals remanded in part the conviction and sentencing of two importers for trademark violations, finding the government overstepped the bounds of the criminal trademark statute. A lower court had found the defendants guilty of, among other things, trademark violations stemming from alteration of merchandise that still bore the original mark. The appeals court said that while such “material alteration” violates the Lanham Act, which governs civil trademark cases, it does not constitute a crime under the criminal trademark statute at 18 USC 2320. The court vacated convictions on several counts, and remanded to the lower court for resentencing only on the counts of counterfeiting based on “pure” counterfeit labels.