The transition of cargo release to the Automated Commercial Environment in November is going to be marked by a transition period that will require some heavy lifting from the trade community, said CBP officials at a National Association Foreign-Trade Zones (NAFTZ) seminar on Feb. 10. While CBP hopes to get everyone to the point where they can exchange electronic messages, it remains to be decided how automation will work at the operational level for entities like terminal operators, truck drivers, and container freight stations that currently stamp paper, said James Swanson, CBP director-cargo security and controls.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Feb. 2-8:
The Commerce Department proposed new guidelines on its “finished merchandise” and “finished goods kits” exemptions from antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions from China (A-570-967/C-570-968), in remand results filed on Feb. 6 with the Court of International Trade.
Companies can’t challenge CBP classification decisions on behalf of the manufacturers that use their products as inputs, even if they may suffer indirect injury in the form of lost sales, ruled the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Feb. 3 in an seesawing case on yarn made by Best Key (here). Instead, they must have suffered direct injury to themselves in order to challenge CBP classification decisions in court, said CAFC as it reversed a February decision from the Court of International Trade.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 26 - Feb. 1:
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Jan. 26-30 in case they were missed.
CBP can require a trademark be registered or pending in order for a product to qualify for less stringent country of origin marking rules, said the Court of International Trade on Jan. 28 (here). JBLU challenged CBP’s decision to require its jeans be labeled “made in China” adjacent to and at a similar size as the company’s trade name, C’est Toi Jeans USA, for several entries filed before the company submitted its trademark application to the PTO. It argued CBP should follow the Lanham Act’s definition of trademark as including trade names even if no PTO application has been filed. But CIT found the law and regulations to be silent as to what constitutes a trademark for marking purposes, and decided CBP’s interpretation is a reasonable one.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 19-25:
“Control surfaces” used by professionals in the audio industry to record and edit music are not classifiable in the tariff schedule as automatic data processing machines, ruled the Court of International Trade on Jan. 22 (here). The consoles imported by Digidesign have functions other than sending signals or data to a computer, like adjusting signals fed in by microphones. They also “work in conjunction” with the automatic data processing machine, defined in CIT’s ruling as “functioning or operating in a specified manner while joined together for a common purpose.” Meeting both the conditions of a note to chapter 84, the consoles are excluded from classification as automatic data processing machines, and are instead classifiable as “other” electrical machinery, said CIT.
CBP set in motion the first phase of a plan to increase the use of Centers of Excellence and Expertise by shifting some authorities from the port directors to the directors of three CEEs, the agency said Jan. 20 (here). It also laid out some of the specifics involved within the first phase of the accelerated roll out (here), which will initially involve three CEEs -- electronics in Los Angeles, pharmaceuticals in New York, and petroleum and minerals in Houston. This first phase is part of an agency plan to move post-release processing for entire industries to the corresponding CEEs (see 14030613).