Customs Law

I have been sitting on Xerox Corp. v. United States while I try to take care of meaningful client work. Thank you clients for another year of interesting and rewarding work. I am always honored to be given the opportunity to work with some great companies and individuals. [There may be spoilers in the links below. There are none in the text. Go down those rabbit holes at your peril.] I am irrationally happy to say that saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens this weekend. It made me very happy to re-live being 14 years old, at least for a while. I am also very pleased to say that the reboot did not screw anything up. It has almost exactly the look and feel of the original trilogy, is a bit funnier, and moves at a great pace. Now, if they don't turn Star Trek into the Fast and the Furious, I will continue to be nerdishly happy. I am, however, starting to lose enthusiasm for Batman vs. Superman , which they better not screw up. [Shaking fist at heaven.] That said, I am now abo...

It is apparent that I did not succeed in my goal of getting 52 Rulings of the Week into the Blog. Despite, that, I think this has been a pretty productive blog year. This will be my 71st post of the year, with one to follow. That will probably cap 2015. Next year, I hope to pick up the pace somewhat. I'll continue trying to post the Ruling of the Week and court cases. I'll also make an effort at other administrative news. You know what I miss? Posts about animal smuggling . Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for news, mostly in the form or retweets from other bloggers. For now, consider the chutney problem. Headquarters Ruling H259324 (Sep. 3, 2015) involved the tariff classification and NAFTA status of green olive tapenade from Canada. This ruling is from a protest with an application for further review. That means that Customs and Border Protection denied the NAFTA claim made on this merchandise and the importer protested. In what appears to have been an effort to make the...

There is a lot on my plate at the moment, but I want to be sure to squeeze this in for you. There goes my lunch-time walk up Michigan Avenue. United States v. Nitek Electronics is an important decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Go read it. The gist is all you will get from me today. The gist is that when the United States commences a penalty action in the United States Court of International Trade, the point of the action is to collect on the same penalty claim Customs and Border Protection asserted in the administrative process. In Nitek, Customs' claim was based on a finding that the importer had acted with gross negligence. When Justice filed the case in the CIT, it asserted that the violation occurred as a result of (un-gross) negligence. Nitek moved to dismiss on the grounds that Customs never made a claim based on negligence and, therefore, that claim was not properly before the Court. T he CIT agreed and dismissed the case . On bas...