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I only know what the article said and it said that India said they were finished.

Despite all the arcana to the contrary, and I have no doubt all you said is true, its a pretty sorry intrusion into business that should never be.What I am intuiting is that the guitar industry sought a ruling to avoid a more onerous set of rules.
I just shake my head over stuff like this...too dumb to understand it but it still doesn’t sound right.

I only know what the article said and it said that India said they were finished.

Adder, you can read the affidavit and you can read Gibson's comments. These were simply rough cut blanks of wood in two approximate different sizes. They're not even as finished as the wood you buy in a Home Depot - and I don't call that a finished part of a musical instrument.

But I think the government's position in this raid is unsustainable in the long run.

I have to run to a meeting.

The exporter of the ebony fingerboard blanks was Atheena Exports of India, established in 1985 "main objectives of manufacturing and exporting wooden parts of musical instruments."

It shows three ebony guitar fingerboard products with these measurements:

1. 500 x 70/60 x 9.0 mm

2. 530 x 70/60 x 9.0 mm

3. 700 x 70/60 x 9.0 mm

The photo of the product is this:

You'll see that it has the slots already cut for frets. That, to me, is a finished product.

The product that was shipped to the USA with Luthier Mercantile as the importer was rough-cut blanks of ebony in the following dimensions, with no slots for frets:

1. 510-530 x 75/70 x 10mm

2. 510-530 x 72/62 x 10mm

Gibson admits that it was going to finish the surface and edges of the blanks to size. Gibson has outstanding technology called a Plek machine that cuts its grooves for frets on the fingerboards.

I've said that I don't think the government's position is workable. However, these were not finished products. Atheena sent rough cut blanks instead of its finished product and filled out export paperwork for a finished product.

The importer, LMI, took paperwork that identified these blanks coded as "9902" and described as 'finished parts for a musical instrument" under the Harmonized System established by the World Customs Organization, and changed the code to "4408" and the description to "VENEER SHEET <=6MM OTH, OT" on the import form. 4407 would have been "chipped, split, or cut wood >6MM" and would have been illegal to export from India.

LMI knew these were not finished parts for a musical instrument, or else why would they change the code from 9902 and go to the trouble of changing the description?

There's plenty to argue about regarding the raid - but these were not finished parts for a musical instrument.

And you'll note that nothing I said implicated Gibson in any way in changing codes, falsely describing the contents upon import, or falsely describing the contents upon export. Nor in putting the name of a false consignee on the papers.

But this was a shady import deal.