International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
An Indonesian jewelry company and its co-owner, along with two other employees, were charged last week with taking part in a scheme to evade over $86 million in customs duties on jewelry imports, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced. Two of the individuals, Indonesian national Icha Anastasia and Italian national Claudio Fogale, were arrested last week and each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud (United States v. PT Untung Bersama Sejahtera a/k/a UBS Gold, D.N.J. # 2:25-12158).
CBP has issued a withhold release order against imports manufactured in Mauritius by Firemount Group based on information CBP said "reasonably indicates" the use of forced labor.
United Autoworkers labor union members from John Deere and Caterpillar visited the Commerce Department last week, asking the agency to launch a Section 232 investigation on imports of heavy machinery and equipment.
It won't be difficult for CBP to refund tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to Nicole Bivens Collinson of Sandler Travis.
Though the future of USMCA is unclear, the U.S., Mexico and Canada are too interdependent for the Trump administration to abandon free trade in the continent, according to experts speaking at a Nov. 14 event hosted by the Quincy Institute.
The International Trade Commission seeks comments by Nov. 25 on a Section 337 complaint alleging that imports of vaporizer devices infringe patents held by Juul Labs, it said in a Nov. 17 notice in the Federal Register. According to the complaint, the complainants are seeking a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders against U.S. company Glas, Inc. to bar from entry "certain vaporizer devices, cartridges used therewith, and components thereof" that violate their patents. Juul said in the complaint that this is the company's sixth Section 337 Complaint in the past seven years "to stop the unlawful importation of vaporizer devices and components thereof."
The International Trade Commission seeks comments by Nov. 25 on a Section 337 complaint alleging that imports of computer memory devices infringe patents held by Netlist, it said in a Nov. 17 notice in the Federal Register. According to the complaint, the complainants are seeking a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders against Samsung, Google, and Supermicro to bar from entry "certain dynamic random access memory (DRAM) devices, products containing the same, and components thereof" that violate their patents. Netlist described its products as "DRAM is used as the primary working memory in computers and other devices, such as servers, desktops, and mobile phones, to temporarily store data and instructions that the processor needs for quick access during operation."
On Nov. 14, the FDA posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts (after not having posted new ones for a number of days) on the detention without physical examination of:
USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service is seeking comments on whether to revise U.S. standards for rough rice, brown rice for processing and milled rice, saying that "rice production, quality assessment methods, and consumer preferences may have changed" since AMS last opened a public comment period in 2015, according to a Federal Register notice. Comments will be accepted through Jan. 20.