Tariff engineering is still a legitimate option in the wake of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s June 7 decision on Ford Transit vans, but the practice may be more uncertain in the increasingly frequent circumstances wherein “use” is deemed a consideration in tariff classification, said trade lawyers contacted after the decision was issued.

CBS' David Poltrack, chief research officer and president, CBS Vision, retiring June 30, focusing until then on strategic projects with Radha Subramanyam, executive vice president-chief research and analytics officer, CBS Television Network, taking on oversight of company’s research function, effective immediately; Armando Nunez moves up to president-CEO, CBS Global Distribution Group and chief content licensing officer-corporation, following Paul Franklin retirement as head-domestic syndication and Scott Koondel departure as chief content licensing officer for own production and distribution company.

GigaMedia Chief Financial Officer Dirk Chen resigns for personal reasons, remains on the board; Finance Department head Huang Shih-Chin assumes CFO duties on interim basis ... Comcast hires Michael Cavanagh, leaving Carlyle Group, as senior executive vice president-chief financial officer, effective early this summer, as Comcast Vice Chairman and CFO Michael Angelakis still plans to start and become CEO of a company focused on investing in and operating growth-oriented companies and becomes Comcast senior adviser ... Telecommunications Industry Association hires as senior vice presidents James Reid, ex-aide to then-Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., for government affairs; and Patty Higginbotham, ex-Global Business Travel Association, as general counsel; and also hires Franklin Flint, ex-Dell, as chief technology officer.

At a worldwide unveiling of its back-to-school lineup in New York Tuesday, Acer took the wraps off nine competitively priced PC products, with plans to follow with a second round in time for the holiday season. After four months at the helm of the troubled company, CEO Jason Chen spoke of Acer’s ambition for a “turnaround” based on volume driven by “value” and “affordability.”

Acer President Jim Wong resigns, as CEO post he was scheduled to assume has now been eliminated; Co-Founder Stan Shih returns to company as interim chairman and president.

Acer will cut 7 percent of its global headcount, resulting in savings of $100 million annually starting next fiscal year, as part of a restructuring plan, it said Monday. The Taiwan computer maker now has 8,000 employees globally, said spokeswoman Lisa Emard.

Two importers were released after a year and a half in jail, following the government’s voluntary dismissal of a criminal case in Florida Middle District Court. The two men, Chin Shih Chou, of Taiwan, and Qiao Chu, of China, had along with a U.S. citizen been charged over an alleged scheme to import honey and misidentify it as rice syrup to avoid paying antidumping duties. But after the CBP Port of Savannah test that identified the product as honey was thrown out, and a German test showed the product was in fact rice syrup as the defendants claimed, the U.S. attorney on May 8 dropped the charges.

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Backed by the theme “In Search of Incredible,” Asustek Chairman Jonney Shih launched at a press conference in New York Tuesday a lineup of Windows 8-based computing products under the Asus brand, including what he called the first dual-screen convertible Ultrabook. Shih referred to the end of the “personal computer era” and the beginning of the “ubiquitous cloud computing era” marked by the “SoLoMo” themes of social, location and mobile. He touted Asus goals of performance, style and affordability.

On February 17, 2012, the Justice Department announced that Jeng "Jay" Shih was sentenced to 18 months in prison, while his company, Sunrise Technologies and Trading Corporation, was sentenced to 24 months corporate probation for conspiracy to illegally export U.S.-origin computers to Iran through the United Arab Emirates in violation of the Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).