U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Revenue Division Bond Team (Bond Team) has posted to its Web site its July 27, 2007 issue of Current Issues, as highlighted below:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a notice on its Web site entitled Notice of Examination: October 2007 Customs Broker Examination, which announces that the next customs broker license exam will be held on Monday, October 1, 2007.
The Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements has issued a notice announcing that the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement 2007 tariff preference level for certain non-originating Nicaragua apparel of cotton or man-made fiber, or subject to cotton or MMF restraints,in HTS Chapter 99, Subchapter XV, U.S. Note 15 has been decreased to 97,584,339 SME (from 100,000,000 SME).
In U.S. v. UPS Customhouse Brokerage, Inc.,the Court of International Trade agreed with UPS that the facts presented by Customs were not sufficient to grant summary judgment with respect to penalties imposed concerning certain alleged tariff misclassifications by UPS. As a result, the case must go to trial.
In April 2007 it was reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was developing procedures to give Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) members an additional benefit designed to reduce container demurrage.
According to Congressional sources, Congressional documents, and press reports, the House-Senate conference that is resolving differences between the House- and Senate-passed versions of H.R. 1 (the bill to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission), has adopted an amendment that sets deadlines for the overseas scanning of U.S.-bound cargo containers (in lieu of the different scanning provisions previously passed by the House and Senate).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a notice announcing that the sixth group of land border ports to become mandatory for the Automated Commercial Environment electronic manifest: Truck for advance cargo information purposes will be those in Maine and Minnesota effective October 16, 2007.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and surety sources indicate that CBP now has a policy of rejecting certain executed CBP Form 301 bonds if the bond amount exceeds the liability underwriting amount included on pre-printed CBP 301 forms, usually by the stamped facsimile signature.
A federal judge in Georgia threw out an AT&T wireless spamming lawsuit against a vacation timeshare broker on grounds that AT&T failed to prove the broker was the party responsible for flooding AT&T customers’ cellphones with spam text messages. AT&T told the U.S. District Court, Atlanta, that C&C Global Enterprises sent a flood of spam text messages through its wireless network to its customers, violating U.S. and Georgia anti-spam and consumer protection laws (Case 1:06-CV-2733-TWT). The defendants sought dismissal, saying AT&T sued the wrong party. They said they are not corporate residents of Georgia and bought their Georgia sales leads from third parties. They said they never knowingly accepted sales leads whose pursuit would violate anti-spam or consumer laws. The court said AT&T failed to make a substantial case against C&C’s claim that it was an unknowing recipient of unlawful sales leads provided by others.
Below is updated information regarding upcoming events for which Certified Customs Specialists can earn continuing education credits. (See ITT's Online Archives or 06/29/07 news, 07062920 for earlier BP summary.)