Customs Law

I almost missed this: The Federal Circuit has reversed the Court of International Trade's decision in Alden Leeds . For some reason, the Court has labeled it as nonprecedential. To me, that usually means, "don't bother reading this." But, since I covered the CIT decision and the Federal Circuit decision is interesting, I am happy to have received the anonymous tip to read the case. If you don't remember the facts, you should read the original post. In summary, Customs and Border Protection improperly liquidated entries subject to a dumping case at the 25% deposit rate rather than the correct 4% assessment rate. Customs published a notice of the liquidation, which CBP claims occurred by operation of law. Alden did not notice the liquidation notice and asserted that the liquidation was void, making the notice a nullity. As a result, it went to Court seeking a refund of the duties. The Court of International Trade found in favor of Alden despite a Federal Circuit ...

The Lacey Act is apparently the current poster-child for the excessive regulation of business. I know that because ON February 2, Senator Rand Paul has proposed FOCUS, the Freedom from Over Criminalization and Unjust Seizure Act.  Under the bill, the criminal sanctions in the Lacey Act would be replaced with civil penalties. The bill also excises any reference to "foreign law" from the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act is intended to prevent U.S. importers from benefiting from trade in plant and animal products that were illegally obtained. In other words, someone in the U.S. should not be in a position to benefit from elephant poaching in Kenya. But, it is only "poaching" when defined as such in Kenya, which is foreign law.  According to a web site for Senator Paul's campaign, "The Lacey Act as currently codified is overly broad, imprecise, vague, and subject to abuse by overzealous prosecutors and activist judges." Oddly enough, I think it is a compli...

Customs and Border Protection has posted the instructions for making claims under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Thad document is here . The crazy thing, which I mentioned in an earlier post , is that the rules of origin are based on the 2002 Tariff Schedule and have not been updated for the 2007 or 2012 revisions. As a result, CBP is instructing importers and certifiers to analyze their products under the 2002 rules and to indicate both the 2002 and 2012 tariff classifications.

The KORUS presidential proclamation is out, just in time for the March 15 implementation. The real meat of implementation will be new General Note 33 to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. You can find the HTSUS modifications here. For those of you exporting textiles to Mexico and who read Spanish, here is a notice allegedly modifying the labeling requirements. The new Export Enforcement Coordination Center (E2C2) is open for business. Please do not confuse it with C2E2 , which is much more fun

The Court of International Trade has issued a decision in La Crosse Technology v. United States , which concerns the tariff classification of devices combining, to varying degrees, clocks, weather sensors, and weather forecasting devices. Thus, this is mostly a case about composite goods. But, not entirely. The main instructive point in this case is that the Court of International Trade did a careful review of how to apply the General Rules of Interpretation and, in particular, GRI 3 in slightly differing circumstances. Initially, the Court dismissed the notion that this case could be resolved under GRI 1. Because the tariff headings in question describe only part of the products, the Court moved on the GRI 3, which states: 3. When, by application of rule 2(b) or for any other reason, goods are, prima facie, classifiable under two or more headings, classification shall be effected as follows:   (a) The heading which provides the most specific description shall be preferred t...