This is a reminder that the additional duties on certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, imposed for a three-year period as a Section 421 safeguard, are set to expire on September 25, 2012. Under the current statute, the President may extend the safeguard measures until December 2013, following an investigation by the International Trade Commission initiated on the basis of a request by the President (the statute also allows for initiation on the basis of an industry petition, but sources at ITC said that no petition was filed before the statutory deadline). According to sources at ITC, the President has not requested extension of the measure to date.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Court of International Trade’s affirmance of the International Trade Administration’s remand redetermination, which the ITA completed under protest, of its final results of its 2007 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India (C-533-821). CAFC said the CIT improperly exceeded its authority by requiring the ITA to reopen and supplement the record to admit untimely filed documentation when the Indian respondent and plaintiff, Essar Steel Limited, did not cooperate to the best of its ability.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection released an April update for ACE Trade Account Owners. The update included reminders on the ongoing Document Imaging System (DIS) pilot and the Sept. 29, 2012, effective date for required use of ACE to file advance information for ocean and rail cargo to CBP.
On May 29, the optional import component of the web-based Public Health Information System (PHIS) will be partially operational, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a letter to importers dated April 18, 2012. On that date, in all U.S. official import inspection establishments handling imports of meat, poultry and egg products, PHIS will: (i) provide for a government-to-government electronic transmission of inspection certificate data as an alternative to the paper certification, beginning with Australia and New Zealand; and (ii) begin transfer of 10 data elements from U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) to FSIS.
The International Trade Administration initiated administrative reviews for certain firms subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders with March anniversary dates. The ITA has also received a request to revoke in part one antidumping order for two exporters. The ITA intends to issue the final results of these reviews no later than March 31, 2013.
The International Trade Administration said it will no longer publish certain aspects of its determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings in the Federal Register. The ITA said it's taking this action due to the mounting costs of publishing notices in the Federal Register and widespread access to the Internet. According to the ITA, the content of many the ITA’s Federal Register notices will be reduced (for example, extension notices for preliminary and final results), with much of the information previously included in its FR notices being made available on the ITA’s website. The ITA said it will implement these changes incrementally, beginning May 15, 2012.
Incumbent LECs roundly condemned several legacy telecom regulations in reply comments posted Wednesday in docket 12-61 in support of USTelecom’s petition for forbearance, breaking out the thesaurus to describe the rules they say unfairly shackle ILECs while allowing other carriers to thrive. State commissions opposed the petition, arguing the elimination of several reporting requirements would harm consumers and make it harder for commissions to do their jobs.
The Court of International Trade dismissed another action brought by a domestic producer challenging the distribution of funds under the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA) (aka the Byrd Amendment) with regard to the antidumping duty orders on certain polyester staple fiber from Korea (A-580-839) and Taiwan (A-583-833).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's ACEopedia for July 2012 adds additional information on the process improvements created by ACE to date. A new listing of those improvements is the largest change from the previous ACEopedia.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.