Trade-Related Indictments

Here is every honest importer's nightmare: indictments for trade related activities. While we owe these soon-to-be defendants the presumption of innocence, let's be clear about the fact that these were not your work-a-day importers.

Qi Gui Nie of Charlotte, North Carolina is the winner of the most recent indictment under the Lacey Act. He is charged with importing endangered Asian Boneytongue fish (or Asian Arowana) allegedly valued at $25,000 by means of a container stocked with legally imported fish and a false bottom compartment containing the illegal fish. If convicted, Nie faces up to 30 years in prison and $25,000 in fines for each count in the indictment.

The press release includes a quote from James Gale of U.S. Fish & Wildlife. I may be imagining it, but the name sounds familiar. I think he was mentioned in the book The Lizard King, which is about reptile smuggling and worth a read.

Indictment number two is really a series of indictments. The cases relate to what has become known as "honey laundering." The practice involves transhipping honey from China through other countries and failing to disclose its actual origin. Why would someone do that? Because there are antidumping duties applicable to honey from China. At least at one point, the deposit rate was as high as 183%. That kind of added cost will certainly cut right through your profit margin.

This story has some local color for those of us in Chicago. Here is the Tribune's article.

If you are looking for more exotic honey, try some of Pitcairn Island's finest. Brought to you by disease-free bees and the 50 descendants of Fletcher Christian, the other mutineers from the H.M.S. Bounty, and their Tahitian friends. Read about that here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

Target on Finality

Image
In the last post , about the Federal Circuit’s very important decision on due process and allegations of evasion of antidumping duties, I made a snarky, offhand comment that the government believes “liquidation is magic.” That was in the context of the government arguing that Customs’ liquidation of entries mooted an appeal, thereby taking away the importer’s right to further judicial review. I said that knowing full well that I still needed to write this post summarizing Target Corp. v. United States in which Target made what I want to be a valid and righteous argument that Customs’ improper liquidation of entries at a favorable rate of antidumping duty prevents the Court of International Trade from ordering Customs to collect the legally applicable duties. But it turns out that while liquidation is an important legal step, in at least one unusual circumstance it is not sufficiently powerful to overcome the full force of an Article III court. Understanding this case requires a lot
Read more

CAFC: EAPA Process Really Does Violate Due Process

Image
Hot on the heels of my complaining about how the EAPA law and process is stacked against importers, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued an important decision that will have a major impact on how those cases work. If you are unfamiliar with evasion cases under the Enforce and Protect Act and how Customs and Border Protection handles them, go back and look at these two posts: Part 1 , Part 2. Royal Brush Manufacturing, Inc. v. United States , is the decision in an evasion case against Royal Brush involving pencils allegedly transshipped from China through the Philippines. Customs determined that there was evasion of an antidumping duty order based in part on evidence that was not disclosed to Royal. Specifically, Customs sent a representative to the facility in the Philippines to photograph the interior and provide a report. Customs refused to disclose all the photographs to Royal. Moreover, CBP's report concluded that the facility did not have sufficient capacit
Read more