The U.S. brought a customs penalty suit against importer E-Dong U.S.A. for failure to pay federal excise tax on entries of soju bottles from South Korea. Filing a complaint March 28 at the Court of International Trade, the government said that the company entered the soju, a Korean spirit, via "material or false statement" by failing to reference any of the owed excise tax (U.S. v. E-Dong, U.S.A., CIT # 24-00066).
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website March 28, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Vessels arriving with cargo for unloading in Baltimore may consider using a different U.S. port until further notice, CBP said in a CSMS message on March 29. Vessel arrival notices and manifest updates would be required to make a switch, including updating the port of unlading, the agency said in the notice. The port has been closed to vessel traffic since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed March 26 (see 2403260047).
PHILADELPHIA -- The glacial pace of developing electronically submitted export manifests is finally picking up, participants on a CBP export modernization panel said, with Tom Pagano, outbound enforcement policy branch chief, saying "we're really close."
PHILADELPHIA -- CBP officials who clear or reject packages from importers seeking to show there is no Uyghur labor anywhere in the supply chain of a detained product said it's not enough to assemble a paper trail of every transaction and vendor from raw material to finished good.
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register March 28 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department intends to end antidumping and countervailing duties on stainless steel flanges made to SAE J518 or ISO 6162 specification, the agency said in the initiation and preliminary results of a changed circumstances review of the AD/CVD orders on stainless steel flanges from China (A-570-064/C-570-065) and India (A-533-877/C-533-878).
The Commerce Department has released amended final results of the antidumping duty administrative review on steel propane cylinders from Thailand (A-549-839) that were used to set final assessments of AD on importers for subject merchandise entered Aug. 1, 2021, through July 31, 2022 (see 2402220068). The amendment came as the result of a ministerial error allegation from Sahamitr Pressure Container Public Company Limited (SMPC), which was also the only company subject to the review. Commerce said it agreed with the allegation, and corrected an error with respect to the selection of sales databases used in SMPC’s margin analysis. The correction results in a change to the AD rate for SPMC from 2.17% to 2.15%. The new rate is effective March 29.
Two domestic producers seek the imposition of new antidumping and countervailing duties on ferrosilicon from Brazil, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Russia, they said in a petition filed with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission March 27. Commerce will now decide whether to begin AD/CVD investigations, which could result in the imposition of permanent AD/CVD orders and the assessment of AD and CVD on importers. The petition was filed by CC Metals and Alloys (CCMA) and Ferroglobe USA.