Ruling of the Week 2015.7: When is a Porsche More Than A Car?

I am late on this ruling of the week. I have been busy milking my Walking Dead posting, which got picked up by my friends at Law and the Multiverse. But, as far as I am concerned, I have another couple hours to go in this week. And, since most of you are probably busy watching the Academy Awards, I will sneak this post on to the site and give it a Hollywood connection.

This will be quick because there is not much law in this week's ruling. The ruling is NY N254307 (Jun 11, 2014). As you may know, rulings issued by the NY office of Customs and Border Protection often do not contain a lot of legal analysis. Given the short deadline and volume of requests, this makes sense.

My guess is that whoever wrote this particular ruling is a car buff. He or she certainly expended a lot of language to find that this particular 1969 Porsche 917K is classifiable not as a passenger car but as a collector's item. That was probably a good result for the importer, because the car was to be sold at auction and was expected to go for as much as $20 million.

Why? Well, a couple things. First, just look at it (although this is not the same one):




From Amanti delle Supercar

Next, the car in question was driven by Steve McQueen in the movie Le Mans.

From Cinemasterpieces
Third, and this is where I am out of my depth, the car belonged to Jo Siffert, who is apparently a legend in racing and in Porsche circles. If you read the ruling, you can easily feel the admiration the writer has for both the car and the driver. At least I think I can feel that.

For example, rather than just recount the facts in one of two sentences, CBP says:

To set the record straight, the 1969 Porsche, 917, chassis 917-024, had a long tail body, and was removed from its competition debut of May 11, 1969 in the 1000km Spa Francorchamps due to unstable vehicle conditions resulting from the vehicle’s long tail frame generating significant lift factors on straights using all of the road at speed. Records do indicate that racecar drivers Jo Siffert and Brain Redman managed to clock an unofficial lap time in the 917 Porsche, chassis 917-024, of 3:41.9 which would have beaten the pole of 3:42.5 set by the Lola, but they chose to use the Porsche 908LH long tail with which they won the race and set the fastest lap at 3:37.1. 
None of that is particularly relevant, nor is the detail of Siffert's career. But, it makes for good reading as these things go.

For our purposes, the important thing is Customs' conclusion that the rarity of the vehicle and its connections to Siffert and Hollywood  was sufficient reason to classify it in HTSUS item 9705.00.00 as a collector's piece. That made it duty free.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ruling of the Week 2015.8: Old Jersey and Pitcairn Island

Image
For today's ROTW, I set out looking for a ruling dealing with some far off and preferably warm location. Turns out that, with the exception of coastwise transit issues, there are no Customs and Border Protection rulings involving Pitcairn Island or any of several Pacific Ocean microstates including Tuvalu , Niue , and Kiribati . Pitcairn Island What I did find is an interesting question about the country of origin marking for products of the Bailiwick of Jersey Island, Channel Islands. The ruling is HQ 561938 (Mar. 18, 2002). For those of you who may not know, Jersey is an island off the coast of Normandy, France. It is an independent international actor and not part of the U.K. although the U.K. is responsible for its defense and external relations. Also, the Queen is the Head of State in her capacity as "the Crown in Right of Jersey." It is, according to the U.S. Department of State, a " Crown Dependency " along with the Isle of Man and the Bailiwick o...
Read more

CAFC Decision in Double Invoicing Case

The Federal Circuit has issued a decision on the merits in United States v. Inn Foods, Inc.  There had been a previous decision on jurisdiction, which was followed by a trial at the Court of International Trade and then this appeal on the substance. The initial issue is whether Inn Foods' invoicing practice amounts to fraud.  Inn Foods had been receiving an invoice from growers in Mexico that had a relatively low sales prices on it.  Subsequent to entry, Inn Foods created a second invoice at something more similar to market value, retaining the original invoice number, and paid at that higher amount.   Superficially, this looks like a standard-issue double-invoicing scheme.  But, in the age of reconciliation, is it really more like a provisional pricing mechanism?  It might have been possible to make that argument had Inn Foods adjusted its entries accordingly.  It didn't and the loss of revenue was approximately $624,000.  Based on testimony and evidence indicating both knowl...
Read more

Ninestar and UFLPA Exhaustion

Image
Exhaustion is a key doctrine in administrative law. When applicable, it requires that a party unhappy with an agency’s determination complete the administrative appeal process before turning to the courts for judicial review. Requiring exhaustion typically promotes judicial efficiency by ensuring that disputes are resolved at the agency and, if they are not, that there is a complete record of the agency process. Exhaustion also ensures that the judiciary respects the executive agencies and their expertise.  There are, on the other hand, times when the courts will find that exhaustion is not necessary or appropriate. Such is the case in  Ninestar Corporation et al. v. United States  et al., a decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade.  Ninestar is also interesting because it is one of the first cases in the CIT involving the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, known as UFLPA. In my hiatus from active blogging, I missed the rise of UFLPA as a major compliance t...
Read more