Customs Law

Lawyering is sometime a creative endeavor. As regulatory lawyers, that does not happen often enough. We rarely get the satisfaction of helping individuals resolve issues that impact their personal liberty or property. That’s OK. I am perfectly happy without a lot of human drama in my practice. On the other hand, I do enjoy stretching my creative lawyering skills. In Erwin Hymer Group North America, Inc. v. United States, counsel for the plaintiff probably had some fun dealing with the issue presented. A reasonable way of describing what happened is this: Customs erroneously approved a protest that should have been suspended. When it failed to pay a refund on the protested entries, Hymer sued. Hymer’s argument comes done to the ancient proposition of school-yard jurisprudence “No take backs.” As with all these procedural cases, the facts matter. When Hymers filed its protest, there was litigation already pending in the Court of International Trade on a similar question. Hymers...

Today, riders are tackling the 14th stage of the Tour du France, climbing the col du Tormalet in the Pyrenees toward the village of Bareges. Take a look at the photos at this link . See how Peter Sagan (green jersey) and Vincenzo Nibali look somewhat tired? The best I could hope to do on this route is flag down the SAG wagon for a ride to the next lunch stop. The graphic below shows the elevation profile. According to the commentators, the first time this hill was included in the Tour, the stage winner called the race organizers "murderers." Clipped from https://racecenter.letour.fr Do you know what these guys are missing? A way to carry a toddler up the col. If they wanted to bring the kids along for the ride, they could opt for the WeeRide Kangaroo Center-Mounted Bicycle-Child Carrier . From WeeRide.com This video shows the WeeRide in action and makes me think I did parenting all wrong: Which brings me to Kent International, Inc. v. United States , ...

Apects Furniture International v. United States is such a painful example of customs litigation, that I have started and deleted draft posts a number of time. So, I am just going to bottom line it and move on my life. The issue here is whether Aspects properly protested multiple liquidations on a single protest filed in the Automated Commercial Environment. The protests relate to a rate advance to collect antidumping duties on wooden bedroom furniture. There are nine entries at issue. Apsects protests [spoiler] all nine in the system that Customs and Border Protection designed and made available to the trade. The narrative section identified a single relevant entry number, which was used as the "lead entry." The government asserted that the remaining eight entries were not properly subject to the protest. However, the Court pointed out, when Apects filed the protest, it (or its representative) used the function of the system that allows the user to "Add Additional E...