The World Customs Organization issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Country of origin cases
In a case against an Iranian banker accused of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, Judge Alison Nathan for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York lambasted federal prosecutors over their mishandling of evidence and dereliction of responsibility. Stopping short of finding them guilty of knowingly withholding crucial information or intentionally misrepresenting facts to the court, Nathan in a Feb. 22 ruling called for a full investigation of the prosecutors' actions by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility and said she hopes the government's reforms on evidence handling training will ensure that similar action is not repeated.
Thompson Hine trade attorney Dan Ujczo expects the only activity on trade in the first eight months of Joe Biden's presidency will be on issues either so small that they don't make a splash -- such as the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill and the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program -- or on issues that have an immediate need for action.
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Feb. 22 (some may also be given separate headlines):
Costa Rica recently issued a trade decree intended to “facilitate the application” of various tariff and trade agreements, a Feb. 19 KPMG post said. Under the decree, traders will soon be able to submit certificates of origin electronically, KPMG said, and Costa Rica’s national customs system won’t require commercial invoices and other trade-related certifications to be authenticated. The decree also includes time frames for traders to correct their certificates of origin, outlines which “mechanisms” are used to request custom duty refunds, and establishes “parameters that customs control documents must satisfy.”
India's Directorate General of Foreign Trade proposed issuing Certificate of Origins (Non-Preferential) through its online Common Digital Platform, effective April 1. Issued in a Feb. 19 trade notice, importers and exporters will be able to file for a CoO (NP) online or in manual mode, but applications will be accepted only in online mode. A uniform fee of 100 rupees will be charged with each CoO certificate issued.
A judge with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas declined to allow the state of Texas to voluntarily drop a civil forfeiture lawsuit over goods seized by a local law enforcement group that aims to stop illegal exports. The state will continue litigation in a similar case in front of the same court. The federal government isn't a party in either case.
The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked export privileges for a Chicago resident for an illegal export to the United Arab Emirates, BIS said in a Feb. 17 order. BIS said Siddharth Bhatt was convicted Sept. 16, 2020, of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after he tried to export a controlled U.S.-origin thermal imaging camera to the UAE without a required license. Bhatt was sentenced to 48 months of probation and was fined about $2,500. BIS revoked Bhatt’s export privileges for 10 years from the date of his conviction, and revoked any BIS-issued licenses in which he had an interest at the time of his conviction.
Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the most prominent China hawks in Congress, thinks that the Bureau of Industry and Security is buried within an organization “hostile to the aggressive use of export controls,” and so it should be moved from the Commerce Department to the State Department, because, he says, that department puts national security first. Cotton, who has published a lengthy report on what he calls the economic long war with China, discussed his views during an online program at the Reagan Presidential Foundation on Feb. 18.
The European Commission opened an antidumping investigation of certain graphite electrode systems originating in China. The investigation is based on a complaint from Graphite Cova, Showa Denko Carbon Holding and Tokai ErftCarbon on graphite electrodes of a kind used for electric furnaces, with an apparent density of 1.5 g/cm3 or more and an electrical resistance of 7 micro ohm meters or less, and nipples used for such electrodes. Complainants “provided sufficient evidence that there are raw material distortions in the country concerned regarding the product under investigation,” and that compared with prices in other international markets, are significantly lower, the EC notice said. “[T]he investigation will examine the alleged distortions to assess whether, if relevant, a duty lower than the margin of dumping would be sufficient to remove injury.”