The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America asked the Federal Maritime Commission questions on the demurrage and detention final rule (see 2402230049). The NCBFAA, in comments dated April 22, said the questions were submitted on behalf of its members and other "industry stakeholders" and raised several questions that were not addressed in the final rule.
The Commerce Department issued notices in the Federal Register on its recently initiated antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) from China and India (A-570-160/C-570-161, A-533-922/C-533-923). The CVD investigations and the AD investigation on India cover entries for the calendar year 2023. The AD investigation China covers entries July 1, 2023, through Dec. 31, 2023.
Kitchenware retailer Williams-Sonoma agreed to pay $3.2 million in civil penalties and "stop making false and misleading claims about the origins of its products," settling a lawsuit brought in a California court, DOJ announced. The agency alleged that Williams-Sonoma violated a Federal Trade Commission administrative order barring the company from advertising wholly imported goods and goods containing "significant imported content" as being "Made in the USA" (U.S. v. Williams-Sonoma, N.D. Cal. # 24-02396).
Perkins Coie partner Michael House told an audience of automotive supply chain professionals that this fiscal year has seen not only a sharp increase in the number of detentions, "but even more important, in our view, is the scope of products being detained has diversified, and there's been a steady increase in detentions of merchandise that were outside those original so-called priority sectors."
The FDA will allow more time for comments on a draft guidance it issued in February on the use of sampling of fish and fishery products by importers and foreign manufacturers and processors to demonstrate the admissibility of goods subject to an import alert, or to have the goods removed from an import alert (see 2402090066). The agency said it will now allow comments by June 25, after receiving a request that it extend the deadline for comments, which was originally April 12.
The Court of International Trade on April 24 sustained CBP's finding on remand that importer Columbia Aluminum Products didn't evade the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China. But Judge Timothy Stanceu rejected Columbia's claim that CBP needed to immediately terminate the interim measures issued under the Enforce and Protect Act after reversing its original evasion finding.
CBP has released its April 24 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 58, No. 16), which includes the following ruling actions:
In the April 24 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 58, No. 16), CBP published a proposal to revoke ruling letters concerning wireless headphone sets from China, Mexico and an undisclosed country.
A career staffer in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative whose portfolio includes the auto industry told an audience of auto industry supply chain professionals that it's likely the U.S. will be talking with Mexico about the increased foreign direct investment from Chinese companies manufacturing auto parts or, potentially, assembling vehicles, in Mexico.
A group of U.S. solar panel producers is seeking new antidumping and countervailing duty orders on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from the same four Southeast Asian countries that Commerce recently found were circumventing AD/CVD on solar cells from China (see 2308180044).