Customs Law

I have trying to get to this one, and now is the time. Bell Supply Co, LLC v. United States is an important decision from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The issue presented is whether, when making a scope determination, Commerce should apply the traditional substantial transformation test to determine the origin of the merchandise that was partially manufactured in a country subject to the order and partially manufactured outside that country. In this case, the question was whether unfinished oil country tubular goods initially fabricated in China and finished in Indonesia are within the scope of the order covering OCTG from China. Bell purchased "green tubes" from China and sent them to Indonesia where they were heat treated and finished. In 2014, the Department of Commerce issued a scope ruling finding that the OCTG shipped from China as green tubes and then finished in third countries remain products of China for purposes of the application of the antid...

[Note: Updated to properly identify the organization supporting the litigation.] I often tell students and other lawyers that the great thing about my practice is the lack of human drama. In most cases, getting to the right result in a dispute with Customs and Border Protection is about knowing the law and making sure everyone applies it properly to the facts. Usually, no one cries and rarely is anyone subject to imprisonment. But, that is not always the case. One thing we do in my office is help people with currency seizures. Just to be 100% clear on this: It is illegal to bring over $10,000 in or out of the country without declaring it to Customs. This is very useful information for law enforcement on a number of fronts. The money might be from illegal activity, it might be going to support terrorist organizations, it might be part of a money laundering scheme. When entering the country, there is an obvious time and place to make this declaration. If you are using a paper decla...

Sometimes, the most interesting customs cases are not litigated at the Court of International Trade. They are in the U.S. district courts and involve important constitutional and administrative law principles not related to duties and penalties. Two of those deserve note here. This post will cover the first. And, yes, I know there are more routine CIT and CAFC cases to address. Someone [a former government official who, despite this crack, I still like] event recently chastised me for being behind here. I promise you that my self-appointed obligation to the trade community weighs heavily on me. I will try to catch up. But first is U.S. v. Kolsuz . This case involves CBP's suspicion-less search of a cell phone. As background, you need to know that the law has been clear for decades that Customs and Border Protection is allowed to search cargo and the personal effects of arriving passengers without a warrant and without even particularized suspicion that they might contain evid...